An actor I am but not upon the stage

I’m two-dimensional, start blank as a page

But my body slowly appears in ink

Black boned words that may sink in tears

Bring or allay the deepest of fears

My form appears in verse, stanzas birth

The who I shall be and express the why

Each word carefully placed - to rhyme - or not

Placed in meticulous schemes of girth

To create an emotion, both truth and lies

I may place upon my head a Renaissance bonnet

When said or lute-sung aloud, I become a sonnet

I may stretch my chest in deeply felt odes

Of great heroes (and heroines) haughty boasts

Glasses raised high in here-here toasts

Or my voice may rise sarcastic and rοast

I have black robes and long hanging veils

For dirges and laments and funereal abodes

Yet, I also have tight pants and red feather boas

For the lighter and sexier erotic love poems

I can wear the mask of both Death and L’Amour

I may be gilded and honored in collected works Volume I-XX

Or I may simply appear on a greeting card with wishes aplenty

Some of you may know me as the crumpled note in your pocket

Sometimes I am held with longing in a lover’s locket

But whatever my costume and appearance, my language -

I’ll always be the same in my black bones on the fleshy white page:

A Poem.