"What will you do with your theatre degree?"

I will work day in, day out
To become someone else
To tell a message
To the entire world
a story

I will crack open the skulls
Of many making them
Rethink things
They once thought they knew

I will show everyone
Who doubted me
That they were wrong
And I have the capability
To do anything I please
As long as I believe in myself
And work hard

"I don’t know."

The ticket inspector,
Or, collector
Otherwise known as
The Ticketeer
Anticipates me foolishly
With great stalactites of sweat
Immersing him
I deny him the pleasure
And stroll into the washroom

5 till curtain
5 till my character rises again
5 till they spill my guts
5 till smiles hide death

Thank you 5
I hate you 5

I hardly journey there anymore.

Those ruins are far and distant,
Far and distant, and black and grey.
Relics are moon rocks in the frozen landscape.

The grand façade of the pantheon has
Crumbled into sand. I could crush it all into
Dust beneath my heel.

The mind itself is an eye, a camera obscura,
Lit not by the moon—
That old pinged marble—

Over whose surface I skim in my tiny submarine.
The lunar scene fills my vision,
Film noir.

I spy the cold garden. In the heart of it
Gleams the litter of my chicken bones.
My cowardice the wicked reminder,

Consequence of the role I performed
For the impassive audience. I underwent
A sea change in the theatre of their minds.

On some other plane
Holy voyeurs peer through spyglass,
Seeking to undress the celestial paramour.

Such delicious vacancy—
**** statue in an arena of eyes,
Gristle picked clean by vultures.

The air is ****** dry. Cold stars
Abound in the black sky.
Smeared ink the lingering impression,

Smudged thumbprint.

Only down the road the theatre show,
actors and crew the flowers they throw.

And only one man seated down at the back,
no applause from the palms of his hand.

And red curtains this time fall and unveil,
what I should of felt from love for sale.

And don't shine those lights on me.

And you did.

A parent in a supermarket aisle
slaps her toddler hard and
the child screams in pain and shock.

A teenager walking along a busy street
drops the wrapper of his chocolate-bar
on the footpath.

A woman in a cinema-theatre
in the middle of the movie
calls on her mobile-phone
her son to tell him about the movie,
disturbing the other movie-watchers.

A man walking his dog along a street
takes his dog off the leash and
the dog barks aggressively and lunges
at frightened pedestrians.