Sinister: backstage

[ian]

'think of it as being behind the scenes.  Like in a theatre or something.  I
just pulled us out of the audience, and now we're walking around backstage'
(neil gaiman, american gods)

this will make sense eventually, i promise.  but maybe i lie as i promise.

--------------------


trees in sillhouette
the screen lights a darkened room
i miss your poems

i imagine her
she sits in a bar, alone
waiting for something

i suspect, when asked
she wouldn't tell you, when asked
what she waited for

words are sustenance
she devours the sweet nothings
and offers them back

and, i do miss you.
--------

there is a world where we are all backstage.  the theatre is our own.  some
years ago, a fragrant princess flung her tiara in the air and we ran to
where it landed.  some of us came faster than others.  and what wonders
there were.... back in those magical days.  people still talk about them
with awe.  those who live in the past, and don't realise that the present
can be just as beautiful.

i look around me.  i remember a fragrant princess, and i know she still
hears some of what we say.  she is, i suppose, our narrator, and the rest of
us follow her, nervously, onto the boards.
we throw the characters onstage to appease the audience.  there is a
fumbling haiku writer.  there is a talking pair of trousers.  there is a
fox, cut from a tree.  there are those who step onto the stage and offer
autobiographies, monologues.  there are those who try and amuse with
nonsense.


this is our world.  it belongs to us.  and, guess what???

... its real..

and we have the honour of shaping it, and helping it grow.

i'm standing in a bar, always in a bar.  i've come to meet the haiku writer.
she's gone quiet lately, and i know life as a struggling artiste can be
hard.  all those hand jobs round the back of rackhams..

i don't think she's real.  i think she's only as real as the ian that isn't
afraid, the ian that says what he's thinking and does what he wants to.  i
think she's only as real as the girl that calls herself a sunset, or that
famous pair of pig tails.
but that'll do me.  that's real enough.

who are the audience?  are we our own audience?
no.  you don't see the play from behind the scenes.  where the power lies.
where the play could be ended with one swift drop of a curtain.

 i think those creatures we have created are the audience.  they have lives
of their own.  who knows who else those campbell-kidnapping squirrels have
harmed?  who knows what those smiling cars get up to in their spare time?
i look up to the skies, and i can't SEE a shed there.  but, then, i'm not
looking at the right skies.  these are mine.  i can only imagine how sister
janice slejj's skies look.  from the inside.
 right now, she's bothering some poor innocent individual, and that
individual rubs his hands in angst and wonders who sent this visitation.
oops.  sorry.

we've created a universe.  does that make us gods?

maybe.  a god can be whatever you want it to be.  something, nothing,
everything..all of the above.

oh, its a small world to some.  others would deny its existence.  i'm sure
we even have non-believers amongst our own ranks.  there are many gods who
create something, and then wash their hands of it.  usually, they mutter
something about 'free will'.

the haiku reader won't turn up.  not for me.  and the fictional ian?  he's
got better things to do than wait around in the bar.  he's away with that
team of rugby players that the real ian would walk away from, sneaking
glances over his shoulder.

i'll come back to myself.  back to the other gods.  they all look
suprisingly human.  perhaps that is because they are.

in the dark days, anything can seem possible.  in the dark, anything is
possible.

back to my world.  back to the sunday, and the monday, and the tuesday.
brown carpets, moments that pay my way and corrode my soul.  dreaming of the
crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy nights.

your poems lift me
throwing us back at ourselves
a broken mirror?

i never could write haikus.  and i think we're our own broken mirrors.

those backstage parties make me smile.  they make me feel sorry for the
people who never thought of entering the theatre.  those who never even knew
it existed.  the time in this theatre makes my own long days seem that
little bit magical.  no, remove the word 'seem' from that sentence.

and, if its a small theatre, a wise woman once said: 'a storm in a teacup is
exciting to the teabag'
liz, if you're reading, meet me backstage for a cup of assam some time.

xx
ian

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