I am ignored by automatic doors,
others having to make my entrance,
and I follow like a leaf
in the wake of autumn.
I missed the audition
and the play.
The applause at the end
merely a crinkling of bags.
The cleaners are early
in the empty theatre.
Two hours of hard seats,
two hours of this
and the audience is writing
its own conclusions.
Whereas real life has no conclusions,
only a dying from one state to another.
Listen as the theatre cries for a play,
the new born for a soul,
Wanting the best life
it will ever know.
*the applause wanted to be over
I like to think
-but don't get paid for it-
that they are going
down to work,
coming up for air and home;
hell and heaven in 7 1/2 hour days.
But all these parallels
never converge,
keeping their distance,
and the getting on
becomes the getting off
on whatever you need
to get by the crowds,
your glance sliding across
their non-stick faces.
Could you become
that slim brown figure,
its holiday saint smile
gazing down
as your thoughts are conveyed
past the underwear ads,
taking off, and putting on
the days persona.
You read, over her shoulder,
four stations from the Cross*
that there are more people
alive today than in the whole
of history.
This requires new souls,
you know, the ones
who can smile at you,
as they come down,
as you go up.
*Charing Cross