The Actor

All we are doing
Is putting on an act
Our bodies stage props
Ancient and cracked
Our hearts the electricity pulsing...

Through sound monitors and stage lights
Mechanical doors and Camera flashes
The scripted lines of our life re-unites

And as we get up each morning
We reach into our very own actors’ wardrobe
To wear today’s latest trend
Worn all across the globe
So there is no individual cast
Of actors fighting for their part
Instead we divide them up
In class, intelligence, talent and art

Next comes our debut performance…
Do we want to be pretty or plain?
Strong, weak... a protagonist, a fool
A hero won or victim slain?
The choice is ours – they’ll never know
That we wrote the script
And sowed the very threads
We came prepared, equipped…

To be anything you want
To be the idol of your dreams
The flawed hero, handsome villain
Our faces forever on your screens
To pause and play and fast-forward
To your heart’s content
And when you are bored of us
There will be another to fill that boredom like cement

But all this acting, all this pretending,
Faking, bending-truth and fact
Isn’t at all that healthy
Perhaps it was all made to distract?
Maybe we should all open our eyes
And see that we are not standing upon a stage
We are standing on grass, beneath clear skies
We are not wearing any kind of cloak or disguise
We are here not to act but to improvise.

See Inside My Head

Dedicated to all men and women who have suffered at the hand of expectation and the burden of unfilling what others - before them - have fuillfilled. Especially to all the great Hollywood actresses of the 1900's and the men of Post-war Britain. So much opportunity and so much direction but so little encouragement and pride from those they wish would love them the most. And last but not least; to all those who think they have to comform and comply to anything but themselves, stay the person you are, do not change for the sake of 'duty' or others who do not appreciate the true value of life.


Can you see inside my head?

Reach in

And pluck out

Every bit of jelly-like substance

Untill I am only

Left with an empty skull.

This is how you see me -

Empty.

Like a vase without flowers

Or a book without words

I cannot be rewritten

As you had hoped.

Your ideas are not mine

I am 'The Ideal'

Blank slate to poison

See the blood dripping down

Dried brown like Earthly dirt.

I am 'whole' not 'a hole'

As you made clear

Unlike I - ambiguous and

Buried by those who do not

Seem to care.

I inhabit this shell

And you - my friend

Will never know such hell.