Show Time

[Peredhil]

Pressure mounts behind my cheeks,

Pushing toward reluctant eyes.

Feels like it's crying time again;

I've grown tired of all the lies.

 

Spasms siege my stomach walls:

With bile erupting into throat.

Reality's often hard to swallow -

Shrug it on, a well-worn coat.

 

No tears allowed to rain down face,

No doubling cramps: pain shows when curled.

My smile: an impenetrable shield,

Turn and laugh, then face the world...

 

It's Show Time again.

[Beautiful Nightmare]

*huggles* Hey you spelled things right also well done hehehe! I really like this poem reminds me of what i used to do just feel sad an lonely but still pretend to the world that i was alright its such a horrible feeling! Anyway i love it and i love that i can relate to it!

[Parmenion]

This can so easily apply to so many different things!

 

My initial reaction was an actor (thespian as they like to be called these days?) on stage for the first time in a pretty important role and trying to come to terms with it.

 

My second thought was of a woman who just found out she had cancer but kept the information to herself instead of sharing it with her loved ones. Now she wears a brave face...

 

Don't know where I got the last one from, but that was the image and I think it was my aunt but it was so long ago and I was young then.

 

Universally written with a great message about what not to do (subjective opinion) unless you are actually on stage performing as an actor!

Edited June 19, 2004 by Parmenion

[Ayshela]

*laughs*

and here i was thinking it was a phenomenal description of daily life.

[Parmenion]

Aye lass - thats the brilliance of it. The way it is written allows the reader's imagination to be pretty much unrestrained. The reader in fact must and will create their own scene as they read.

 

Good work old man

[Wyvern]

I also really like this poem, Peredhil, and think that the third stanza is particularly excellent as it portrays the severe rituals many people must go through to properly present themselves to society well. I also love the imagery of vomiting that you use throughout the second stanza, but am a bit stumped by the line "Shrug it on, a well worn coat," which is the one line of the poem that I didn't really like much. It's certainly a nice metaphor for reality and social behaviour, but it seems a bit out of context in a stanza primarily focussed on eating-related imagery.

 

Excellent poem, overall.

[Peredhil]

That third line was meant to provide an implicit bridge between the internal intestinal imagery and the external acknowledgement of fascade when read in that context. The internal had hopefully not only evoked eating, but memories of anyone who's had the nausea of nerves, the ache of stomach pains, the stomach bending revulsion of reality as presented, etc.

The transition is meant to move from the inner perception of the person's mind/body interface, to the perception of the outside and others - and slipping into the "lies" which bound up the end of the first stanza, the image of cool confident "no-weakness here to exploit" which is presented to the world, like a well-worn coat.

This then moves into the buttoning up of the image and adjusting the collar, so to speak, in the last stanza - checking the fit before facing the world.

Maybe I tried to work a few too many levels into this short piece, but I love poetry which reads in many ways...

[Ayshela]

oh, how odd, i never thought of spasms and bile erupting as eating related imagery. O_o Dare one ask how that relates?

[Tasslehoff]

The nerves before a show are always killer like that. I remember my first play, I was afraid I would forget all my lines, but it was weird, I remembered everyone elses too.. Good times.. Nice poem Peredhil