Stage of the Theatre

Catharsis Take II.

 

I am

Inanimate,

Indifferent.

My purpose is that people might stride over me

In frilly dresses and thick overcoats.

I display drama,

I accommodate exaggeration,

I live in a world of fantasy and vision,

Comedy and tragedy and romance.

Emotion is my face,

Though hard and flat and still I am.

I face hundreds,

But none look at I,

For I am just an instrument:

Inanimate,

Indifferent.

I hold the front seat;

Precedence unrecognised,

I have been diminished to enforced humility;

Beige and peat and victim of tactless flurry.

Drama:

That is I,

That is my world,

That is my life.

To my cheeks are pressed the undersides

Of human shoes.

Not a glance passes downwards;

All eyes are tilted upwards

Away from I.

But I do not mind.

I am inanimate,

Indifferent.

--Am I not?