An actor I am but not upon the stage I’m two-dimensional, start blank as a page But my body slowly appears in ink Black boned words that may sink in tears Bring or allay the deepest of fears

My form appears in verse, stanzas birth The who I shall be and express the why Each word carefully placed - to rhyme - or not Placed in meticulous schemes of girth To create an emotion, both truth and lies

I may place upon my head a Renaissance bonnet When said or lute-sung aloud, I become a sonnet I may stretch my chest in deeply felt odes Of great heroes (and heroines) haughty boasts Glasses raised high in here-here toasts Or my voice may rise sarcastic and rοast

I have black robes and long hanging veils For dirges and laments and funereal abodes Yet, I also have tight pants and red feather boas For the lighter and sexier erotic love poems I can wear the mask of both Death and L’Amour

I may be gilded and honored in collected works Volume I-XX Or I may simply appear on a greeting card with wishes aplenty Some of you may know me as the crumpled note in your pocket Sometimes I am held with longing in a lover’s locket But whatever my costume and appearance, my language - I’ll always be the same in my black bones on the fleshy white page:

A Poem.