Halloween Poem #27:
Stage Craft by Michael Romani All of the magic in hocus pocus Is merely that of diverting focus Legendary in its sleight of hand It's all just illusion; understand? Like guns on a stage in the first act As matter of order and certain fact Must eventually come to be used It's a matter of stage craft no to be ill used Somewhere offstage someone is dying But, then someone is always busy dying And while other doctors would not play God To do otherwise, to Frankenstein, would be odd There is it is in that moment's levitation When to the audience's dulled perceptions Sees a woman sawed in half on the stage And then back together with a turned gauge Discussed over high winds and double malt Are the sting of storms rolling in their assault It's there in the compulsion to play actor With its disabused protocol of confused factors Digging deep into all the psychological dirt We find bygone memories in two sheets and a torn shirt Morphine shrieks cause the mind's shambles AS the master of the stage endlessly rambles Composed as a shell game with nothing to see here Foreheads wet with tension soaking in its fear What's really at stake here is seldom ever known Behind which cup is the answer never quite shown There inside the old actor's ragged trunk Is a pile of imagination disguised as junk All of this given to us with polite applause Distractions spoken quietly within a magical pause As Halloween approaches suspense hangs in the air Some yearn for costumed simplicity others for flair But all know it's for the treats we put on the show As grown ups and children act their part in the flow (c) October 27, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
