Every bar looks the same
when you live in a cage,
every round rounds out
with a shot and dry snout.

A cold night out
without snow on the pavement,
as truth slowly trickles through the fickle adoration,
and the empty, impatient crowd
is waiting.

The spotlight hits
a white tie on white shirt,
his smile is perfection,
perfected from dirt
through years of tears and blood and lies,
pompous prattle pasteurised.

The spotlight lingers like cheap perfume
from the back of the room
on a white tie and shirt,
handsome as a groom,
he talks with his hands,
his nails, neatly clipped,
are still lined with dirt.

He holds on to hope
for something like bliss,
not quite convinced it even exists,
outside of an incidental kiss,
but the build-up is crucial
to a master crafter,
and the crowd is rapt,
from the floor to the rafters
awaiting their happily ever after.

For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No 'Brava!', no applause.

An unrehearsed performance,
By a monodramatist,
A solo show, a pantomime,
An improvised burlesque.

Critics stand in groups debating,
The value of my work,
They gossip in the aisles,
The playhouse now a kirk.

My eulogy their invention,
My obituary the prize,
The best review I've ever had,
A mix of humour and soft lies.

I have played the loving daughter,
The honest aunt *****,
The independent sister,
The true and loyal friend.

The sympathetic neighbour,
I have played the errant niece,
The mentor, guide, and confidant,
The ***** and the tease.

In truth, I am a diva,
Living mostly in her head,
But this remains unmentioned,
In a tribute to the dead.

Once rose bouquets beribboned,
From the greatest and the good,
Now a solitary arrangement,
On a coffin made of wood.

For as the curtain rises,
So too the curtain falls,
No accolades, no entourage,
No garlands, no applause.

But wait, I see my error,
As indeed these things exist,
But not for me to comment on,
Nor as I would have wished.

For my aspect is fair frozen,
I cannot turn the page,
My performance has now ended,
And I have left the stage.

Come with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.