Long Footlights Poems
Long Footlights Poems. Below are the most popular long Footlights by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Footlights poems by poem length and keyword.
You had to be there. Literally, there.
Just hearing it removes the third dimension.
Necessity's the mother of invention?
Idea-whose-time-has-come must be the père.
But how can you replace the footlights' glare,
the acrobats' contrived, but visceral, tension?
You can't. So much is lost in a mere mention,
that wings its way to us through colourless air.
They once were princes. Now reduced to strugglers.
What use is wireless to ventriloquists?
Where did their future go? There are no answers.
The dole can never compensate the jugglers,
or anyone whose acumen consists
in sleight of hand - snake charmers or tap dancers.
Curtain Time
by Odin Roark
The warnings
The preparation
The moment
Such expectancy
Be it plebeian
Or royal instinct
Openings' glitter
Brings incessant challenges
Making hoary one's existence
So functions the undertow
The inward monitor
Yours
Mine
Those backstage
Probity unseen
Untested
How diligent this amorphous reality
This integrity always in the making
Urging while cautious
Impotent while daring
Tactical while fearful
For it knows missteps
Begin in the wings
Yet
Blinding lights lure
Sounds of acceptance seduce
Daring casts its fate
Across one's personal footlights
Moment's truth is heard
Why
This need for lights
Applause
Veneration
Once reserved for artists
Of the stage?
We only know
Celebritydom
Entices the ignorant
The smart
The genius
And the saintly
The world is one big curtain
Al-Qaeda
Congress
Hollywood
Domestic and career aspirants
Even philanthropies
Clamor for the luminosity
The sweat of anticipation
The roar of acceptance
Not yet knowing the silence
Of an empty house
Such is reality
Sooner
Or
Later
When standing alone on a dark stage
of the unknown
where eyes read the scribbled script
of life's lonely pages
internal tears endlessly fall
creating pools of painful regrets
that discolored the soul
for the stolen measures of another's loneliness
shared when love was a drunk passionate
interlude of sensual melodies
heard in a fading heartbeat yearning to be loved
when the rising and setting of romantic suns
offered a glimpse of paradise wishes
Where dreams are found in a heart's harmony
of hopeful promise from the words of a lonely actor
who commanded the podium...until the curtain fell
and life became a dark stage of dramatic art
when wormwood bile covered the footlights
and the armor protecting the soul started to rust
in this theatre of the fabricated
from the persuasiveness of soft-spoken lies
heard when looking into a mirror
of masquerading memories
kept in the dark rhetoric of words
whose pages were read on a stage of unrepentance
filled with dancing shadows of moonlight lovers
whose faces were lost
when life was a malignant mass of mascara
worn as an actor's disguise
in a pantomime of sullied illusion
while standing alone seeking redemption
in front of an empty auditorium
My jaunt through over crowded hallways
past bodies grouped like gulls gathering
a grey murmuring
patients on overdose
their creased faces like glaciers streaked
by warming
pink white rings that circle their eyes
rabbit pinched
unfocused
glances not easily discarded
Henry, slumped in his wheelchair
his body uncoupled like a skylark
cut from song
thin shoulders falling to trembling limbs
He greets me, barely audible
words that leave soft traces
that sometimes choke on their own silence
What oozes forth,
fragmented stories of acting on the stage
till footlights dimmed
Time vandalized history
Roots in a cushioned land
Beseeching, he asks "Roll my wheelchair to the
train tracks. Leave me there."
Panic closes in like shutters
to darken the wood of smiling
I wedge words, can brook no paths criminal
A quick embrace to soothe unmoored grief
to appease the unprotected
My blunt exit (slowed momentum)
on floor stickiness,
waste-brine that coats my soles
anchoring displacement
Poem revised June 9, 2021
Is standing at the footlights, with
a crowd, unknown and that you
cannot see!
With smoke billowing to the ceiling.
You share your Funny Stories
with total strangers.
Suddenly, transformation.
They love your jokes instantly.
Only, they were not jokes.
I was totally sharing me.
It's akin to falling in love.
You absolutely are fearless!
You just let go!
Then you and the audience
become one in festive fun.
November 22, 2019
***Panagiota~ retired stand-up
Comedian:Chicago and S.F.
Credits to my comedy teachers:
Tom Dressen- Comedian;opening act for Sinatra
Tim Reed-" WKRP in Cincinnati"***
Crumpled Thoughts
They wait – in hues of vibrating silence -
Like leftover orts of rumpled paper wimples
On creased clandestine journal pages –
Bent scraps of wrinkled inspiration
Smudged moments held in their one moment of time
Musings fading to illegible
Lost chords in treasured memories of radiance,
Sunspots of incomplete illumination,
Or crumpled creativity on paper wings
Snapshots of raw moments in tormented terror
Footprint creased signatures of incensed avenging angels
For abandoned ragged beggars in pencil
Of partial tidings
Wearing incomplete tatters of disturbed serenity
Waiting – lined up – for their turn to speak –
Vying for resuscitation
As actors reading their scripts –
Players auditioning for ideas
Of ice castles throwing off anonymity
Whistling like nonchalant sentimental journeys
In phases of the moon begging for words
Libretti confronting notes wandering in obscurity
Impatient plans in fits of tantrum’s flight
Residue of fantasies for
Gypsy fortuneteller’s phantasmal globes
Rescued by ruminations tender muse
With the gift of time to take them from her
Nurturing womb into full life and maturity –
Blinking in the brightness of real time
Bits and snatches adjust sight from consecrated darkness
To lumens brightness of looming footlights
Now taking bows in postmarks of epilogues -
Snatched from wondrous oblivion -
Profiles sketched in hope’s penumbra.
1-11-21
Contest: Crimpled Thoughts
Sponsor: John Lawless
Footlights:The Joy of Being a Stand Up Comedian
The audience is getting their drinks,
And a silent hush falls, like a wave,on the crowd.
I know it's my moment to rise and shine,
Standing alone, facing a crowd, albeit totally unknown.
It's the most frightening moment of my
life, as perspiration runs down my back.
How can I make others laugh?
But it's quite easy you see,
I simply was taught to just be me,
With no jokes,and no corny lines to crack.
The audience and I, in close relationship.
Was the sweetest, biggest treat for me.
The short time passed oh, too quickly.
A magical kinship so very sweet,
That no heckler ever did I ever meet!
Comedy in the 70's was based on humor.
Not political destruction, nor filled with
obscenities we drown in today.
It was a total rush, for me!
Always with my heart pounding,
before they announced simply, me.
Afterwards, people asking for my autograph,
How sweet is that, I thought!
And the best part, ever?
Saying they would love to have a friend
Like me in their lives, forever.
Doing comedy, yes, a rush divinely complete!
Panagiota Romios
4/11/2019
Entry: My Amphetamine Contest
Anthony Slausin
Credits to my comedic mentors: Tom Dreisen and Tim Reid
(the first and last interracial comedy team.)
Plus the teachers and cast members at Second City Theatre,
Chicago, Illinois
Heart Sutra
The moonlight, the firelight,
the scent of your cologne.
Enchanting, oh!
Our toes in amorous games
do play, shadow dancing.
The flames act as our footlights
and so......
As the first frost descends on
the one last, California rose.
Such unspeakable solace in my
intimate desire grows.
I lean on the tartan plaid coverlet
to kiss that Olympian nose.
Then...place my velvet-ribboned
pony tailed head, so gratefully upon
your crescent chest.
Just to hear the wind chimes of your
heart.
We, both so magically magnificent
and masterpieces of God's finest art.
Always together and never apart!
Your forever~
Panagiota
Leaves of burnished gold take flight
Whirling spirals, with childish delight
A final pirouette without a sound
Before they sadly hit the ground
Their dance is done, they take their place
Piously accepting autumn,with simple grace
Wearing faded colors of garnet, gold and green
They serenely exit, from the final scene
The footlights diminished for another year
Until the choreographer of Spring, faithfully reappears
Leaves will emerge in sunshine and bathe in the rain
A glorious celebration for the dance to begin again
Actors All
by Odin Roark
To fool
Or be fooled
Innate competition for
Life’s continuance sweepstakes
Real life’s honesty
Knows survival of the fittest
Relies on impression’s armament
One’s tightly woven costume of persuasion
Ever ready to defend strategy’s patience
Curtains rise
Settings come alive
Footlights’ massage
Spotlights’ invite
As staging presents
Seduction’s heroes and heroines
Intermission
The persuaders
And persuaded
Take respite
As presentation’s set-up and conflict
Prepares regroupings
Making ready the resolve
Closing curtain
Applause fades
Marquee goes temporarily dark
But just as the next opening
Opts to repeat tried and proven choices
Whether performer
Or audience
The art of persuasion
Continues to evolve
Gradually
Acting’s duality of purpose
Will fade-out separation’s proscenium arch
Opting to invite spectators on stage
Where applause and bows will become one
Where separate identity will cross over
Forging audience and players as one
Making the we/them question moot
Yes
The Bard was right
Actors all