Haiku: Masque Your ID

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Masque identity
hide your true humanity –
open eyes stay shut

Copyright Francis 2022

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Deafening Mime

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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.

Poem: ‘Handbags’

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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

*Fine accessories…