
Masque identity
hide your true humanity –
open eyes stay shut
Copyright Francis 2022
Masque identity
hide your true humanity –
open eyes stay shut
Copyright Francis 2022
Snow flurry
through street of masks —
freezing point
Copyright Francis 2021
The mime artist confronts me,
lithe and contorting,
nuancing as best she can
with her eyes.
Masked and distanced,
her gestures rage out loud
and proud,
yet I do not understand,
I can’t even take her hand
to console, to reassure;
so now she’s rubbing her eyes
with feigned clenched fists
but the sorrow doesn’t translate;
such sobbing falls on deaf ears,
yet it screams to my soul:
She’s in her world, I’m in mine,
dimensions apart,
both of us born again infants
deprived of facial cues.
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
*dVerse: Let your words ring out. I taken a ‘left field’ approach.
She breezes in
as if no crisis were enveloping.
I’m asked to comment
on the bright red handbag,
glitzy, chic — expensive,
as it’s thrust in my face.
I look at her clothes,
the mask which cost more
than dinner for two.
And then the eyes. What do I see?
Nothing but sadness, emptiness
behind those roundels of blue.
So of course, the handbag is fine,
and that’s what I say, though
it’s far more than I would pay.
Gratified, she scoots off
without once asking how I am
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Copyright Francis Barker 2020