The Child And The Performer Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

Last evening a sparrow was pecking at my window,
then on television I saw the child writhing as he saw
his home and parents bombed: ‘Punish the killer,
my God, I’ll live in the cemetery with my parents.'

They say I'm an excellent performer of passion,
I know how to relax you so that you belong to Eros,
I affix wings on your back that you open as leaves,
and so you fly in time and space for the nice kiss.

Being actor I’ve many awards, perfect reviews,
still I could never have lived the act of that child,
unless my soul be endowed with sunlight
entering without bleeds the operating room,
unless I could cut my skin with a razor
down to the bone and reach the marrow,
deep in the very essence of the human art.

For there, the microcosm is a macrocosm,
close to the human being, not above him,
doing ethos and a workshop of the society,
the few become plenty, the ideas art.

The sparrow at my window reminds me of the child
therefor on stage I feel like a parrot, like a monkey,
an actor with a mask thus avoiding to see the child,
namely the truth that tells how the truth is murdered.


© JosephJosephides