Thespian

With his beguiling voice he has practised cadence:

the whisper, the shout, change of tone

and change of pace: this actor

who hoards his accolades in a travelling bag.

A brooding Hamlet, a sonorous Vanya,

he soldiers on night after night

repeating the same love scene,

the same quick change from pathos to rage.

Master of silence and master of speech,

of the strut and the dying fall,

of anxiety, inertia and contradictions.

He is like a priest before his congregation,

this actor who must endure

judgments, opinions, the analogy with Narcissus