Unmask Your Mask

In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed . You cannot unmask a mask.-G. K. Chesterton

Points to ponder: Are we wearing a mask when we leave the house? How many masks have we?

Two poems per poet, max. New writes, any length, no collaborations and please title your poems.

The Agenda

At home,
His internet searches are filled with all the pleasures of the world,
The guilty pleasures,
The kind he can’t share with those close to him.

So when he goes on business trips abroad
During his downtime he looks for chances to escape
And when he does
He takes the opportunities to indulge
In the company of men
Men-men
Strong muscular men who take charge of him
Sometimes up to three at the same time

When he returns home from his trips
He goes back to the wife, to the job
To his friends, to his community

But at night he relishes in the memories
Of the company of the men who had him
And the way he submitted
Even looking up scenarios on the web
To maybe next time recreate them

Next week he meets with another conservative group
To talk about and against
The deviant and foul ways America has fallen into
He begins to write the agenda on paper
With his official seal
Office of the Vice President.

Thank you wallyroo for kick starting the competition.

Day (after day) At The Office

Benevolence
he reminded himself
I struck the chord for making due
with fools gold
just another ordinary citizen
chained
to middle class existence
they know nothing more
smile, nod
say hello
to feign interest
at least the smile
props for a moment
their inner-pride
I've no need to linger
no sense of indulgence
just flit the time by
on recycled musings
lost in sands of humbled dream
the outline is clearly visible
blank stares
of masked importance
I am unknown
shown only as diligent
inner
complacent
while my drive
only knows freedom
of self-expression
parked right outside
these gray walls of duty
The ticks
with their vampric teeth
gnaw upon
these
healthy aspirations
swollen by the fat
I've given over years
why
we cry
railing against the one percent
why my mind is my own
no other
save chosen few
know
that I
am not clothed
by baseball
or shiny boats
things
or
stuff
cluttering homes
The weather outside is mine
mine alone
as the crowd thickens
mumbling television shows
two minutes
till my escape
another day, another day
this week, this month
my god
do the rats have to stay on this wheel
I scurry
out the tunnel
throwing the rat-bastard mask
in the garbage
behind the exit door
out into the waiting world

Life of Mendacity

What have I come to be?
Living a life of mendacity
Where truth and honesty
Have fallen into ambiguity
In this world of alternative facts
Am I truly so deceived
That I no longer can discern
What is reality?

Or am I just another hypocrite
In a nation of hypocrisy?
Where liars tell lies
That that they can’t
Tell who’s telling a lie  

My question beguiles the fact
I’m in a living in a state
Of mendacious duplicity

Strings

I look in the mirror
And I straighten my mask
Tying it tightly
Behind my head
One last look, and I smile.
Again I leave to face
The
world.

Closing the door
With a final click
As I join others
Walking in their gloom
Grins pasted on
In false satisfaction.

Inane chatter of lies
False realities
As each person
Jostle to be the one
And yet I watch
From behind my mask
Listening to tall tales

Work again
As I sit and laugh
With those around me
Pretending that I care
That I am a part
Of their click
Talking of nothing
With meaning

Meeting for after work drinks
Knowing each of you
By your falseness
The real you hidden from
Reality
We glide along,
Like a stick floating
On the water

Kisses goodbye
As your lips hit fresh air
Hugs, a brief embrace
As you stumble home
And I go my way.

Letting myself into
Your apartment
And crawling into bed
Beside you
Fumbling in the dark
The strings never loosen
As we cry out in the night
And when morning comes
I leave and close the door
Behind me

Walking home,
watching
Lovers hand in hand
A dog skips around me
As it owner chases behind
His
own
strings
Flapping in the breeze
In his wake

I reach home
And unlock my door
Stepping inside
I breath, a sigh of
relief
Dropping my bag
Where I stand
And wander to
The bedroom
Untying my strings
The weight lifted
My mask removed.

SamiBmuse, eswaller, Soul and Snugglebuck, thank you for your respective participation.

Smile  

There was a time
When I used to lie
To get others in trouble
I played the innocent
Sometimes it would work
Sometimes it wouldn’t
I’d play the victim
Even when I wasn’t
Classmates sometimes
Would get in trouble
As my mask slipped
Secretly I’d smile

There was a time
I used to pretend
To be something
I clearly wasn’t
Full of pride and ego
Full of machismo
As cool as Elvis
Sometimes I would
Get the girls
Sometimes not
As my mask slipped
Secretly I’d still smile

There was a time
I professed love
In order to get sex
Love was lust
I played the game
And so did they
Sometimes it would
Work in my favour
Sometimes not
But I did get
At least some sex
As my mask slipped
Secretly I’d smile

This is the time
I don’t lie
I don’t pretend
I don’t profess
I view masks
As cowardly nonsense
No point in hiding
Not any more
Don’t give a shit
About what you think
No more masks
I smile out loud

Thank you David for your entry.

Masked

a hammer on the nail
repairing fences
as he would do to a snail
smashed to pieces

he thought as
he looked up
and smiled
at his boss....

*not an entry

Loving The Alien


"Writing is both mask and unveiling" - E.B White

~

"I loved what wasn't real"
you finally said, mid-transit
determined to never sit still
as if God had lit a fire
under your ass

and that's
where Hell began.

I thought about it for a while,
chewed over Missy's roots
her wild, scarlet hair
cascading over shoulders

you see, she's always
been there for me

she's never let me down
or stayed quiet in a fight,
or allowed people to walk
all over her

two separate women
in parallel collisions

but that evening
we hung up our masks,
called each other
by our real names

and you told me
about your childhood
and I offered you my love
of music and creativity
somewhere in the middle
of dreams
prospects
ticket stubs

while your past mirrored me perfectly;
a life lived through Grimaldi's eyes
as you fell behind tequila bottles
and the dark melancholy of Missy
her red hair
and fuck you's;
those fantasial gaspings.

I know
that I loved you
and that it was stone
at a time
when we needed words
to save each other's madness.

I look at myself some days
my present thirty-something self
glancing down to where your name
sat so neatly on my inner thigh,
craving the alien memory

of your palms,
lips

my knees,
your face.

I Float

I float
Unlike a butterfly-
No
Like a character
Overwhelmed by the drama
That is life

I wander
In search of innocence;
The show too gory
Too soiled
from its very beginning

Life-
numbered
and cast aside

I am
Just another leaf in Autumn's wind

I float
Unlike a butterfly
But like a lone wanderer lost
In a world too vast
to fully understand

Deaf to Gravity's eery call
I walked lightly upon the earth

Now?
I float

Me, Myself and Unseen


"Nobody cared who I was until I put on the mask" - Bane, The Dark Knight Rises

Not even I cared that much before I put on the mask,
before the visage of Viddax was adopted
before the superego cloak
and shield against reality
the cover and vizard
that disguised my insecurity and emptiness.

Before such times
dreams were less than dreams:
hope without direction
merely yearning
with no aim
only my despair
before this bon ami
with who I could dream
if not live the dream.

In truth I have many masks,
a moustache in real life
- well am muttonstache in the making
to resemble the Victorian ideals
yet looks more like a 21st Century fundamentalist,
matched with my passive face
and deep brown Indian eyes
with their intense deep stare
have a habit of forming a mask
and making a mockery of other people's insight,
or at least making them turn away before I do.

Whereas the visage of Viddax is meant to be the opposite:
friendly and welcoming
without nation or race
a warm unthreatening face;
though that too is not so,
add the self declared title 'lord'
and it becomes imperious, haughty, pompous

but at least that's something
beyond the yawning void beneath.

I may have chosen the mask,
but the mask dictates behaviour
ever looking to improve me
to make the being I dreamed of
as behind every good mask
is a good ego pulling faces.

So it is true that no one cared until I put on the mask,
not even me particularly
but to take it off all you have to do is ask
just wait until you see us together.

Miss_Sub, wanderer and Lord Viddax, thank you for your respective entry.