Stage
My Poem “Peak Performance”
Performers perform what they know…
Performers perform differently depending
on where they are performing…
Performers performing to an audience
feed off of the feedback that they feel
echoing back at them like a wave…
Performers performing based upon
a well rehearsed performance
are participating in a dance…
Performers performing in the moment
are inspired by what
their audience gives to them…
Performers get better
the more that they perform…
Performers of every age and gender
always feel nervous before a performance
but over time they learn to use
what they feel in their stomach
and what they feel in their chest
as a source of fuel
to propel the explosion of artistry
that comes when they find their place,
their stage, their audience
and they can play to the limits of their gifts
with confidence and with a wish
to share their passion
and perform to the peak of their performance.
My Poem ‘The Reveler’
Instantly feeling the life of a party
get inside you, as the music
moves your body to the beat;
living and breathing the life
and the times of a festival,
unable to stop yourself
from moving your feet;
being at a show
and hearing band after band play epically;
losing yourself, finding yourself;
being yourself, embracing your inner-self;
feeling happy, feeling free;
the collective spirit,
emotion, ambiance, and unbridled
and unbounded liberation
is exciting beyond words;
the wondrous magic
is like breathing the air of a brand new world;
the uplifting and enlivening anti-gravity
has you feeling like you are flying like a bird;
the amazing energy penetrates
deep inside you like a sword;
the echoes of waves of sound
emanate and overcome you;
even if the rain was falling
and the sky were a blanket of clouds,
the sun would be shining
and the colour above would be bright blue.
Music is its own language;
music is its own eternal and everlasting age;
music is a force of the universe;
music is what came first;
music is living, breathing, evolving, changing,
and can mean different things
depending on the time that you are listening;
music is meant to be enjoyed and reveled in.
The stage is like a heaven of stars;
the stars of the stage are like angels and messengers;
the songs played are like magic spells of amazing power;
that which raises the heart-rate
and brings stars to everyone’s eyes
is like being in the passenger seat of a speeding car.
If you are wild at heart
and the call of the unseen and the unknown
grips you hard every time you hear it,
then you are a born traveler;
if you can see things
and feel the presence of something divine,
then you are a true believer;
if you feel that every day is a prize
and a gift, then you are always a winner;
if you know what it means to be a part
of something bigger and greater,
that connects you to all levels of nature,
then you are closer than ever to heaven of Earth,
because you are a timeless reveler.
My Poem ‘The Showman’
The audience, the stage,
the lights, the time,
the anticipation, the murmuration,
the feeling in the air
as the lights begin to fade…
and then the Magician appears
into a white spot-light of illumination –
all eyes are looking at him,
he has everyone in a trance,
the Showman begins to tell his story,
and the music starts to play,
as the Mentalist leads us all
in an unforgettable and tremendous dance.
The Showman is a true master of his art;
the Magician is a true wizard of his magic;
the Mentalist has so much to think about
and has to be ten steps ahead of his audiences;
the Storyteller is weaving together
and telling a tale to everybody,
but he is also having to adapt
to the seemingly random choices and responses
of his ticket-paying gathering –
however, every second, the Conjuror
is undoubtedly in control:
he never once shows any sign of nerves,
stage-fright, or not knowing what is happening
and what is going to happen –
because they know that things are playing out
just as they predicted they would,
and everything and everybody
is following their blueprint for the night,
and the pieces of the puzzle
that they have laid out and fragmented deliberately
are coming together according to their plan
and their pattern.
The Showman asks his audience for their trust,
and as a member of their audience,
and because you want to be
under the Magician’s spell as much as possible,
and for as long as you can,
you not only want to give the Mentalist your full-attention,
but you also want to give them
your cooperation and participation.
Being in the audience of a true Showman is a gift;
being there when the lights go down, and the show begins,
is magical in and of itself;
being hypnotized and entranced
literally gives people a lift;
listening intently to the Mentalist’s incantations,
and willingly going on a journey to another place,
and feeling as if you are in a different state of being –
as if you are dreaming;
when you leave the theatre, after the show has ended,
figuring out what happened, and when,
is sometimes hard to recount and tell.
Every second of the Magicians performance is amazing;
every colour, every word, is precise and meaningful;
every person selected at random from the audience
and who gets to tread the boards of the stage
with the Mentalist has an unforgettable experience;
every sound, every visual,
is fascinating and electrifying;
every time the Magician comes into the audience
and literally overcomes people
with their touch and presence,
being so close, is phenomenal;
every act, after the fact,
feels like it happened in a flash –
even at the interval of the show,
you can’t believe that the time
you have been in your seat in the theatre
has gone by so fast.
At the end of the show,
when the performer comes back onto the stage
to take a bow and enjoy a rousing
and roaring standing-ovation,
the Conjuror, the Magician, the Mentalist,
leaves the stage – but then reappears
to connect the dots back to the first thoughts
that they had verbalized,
the first pieces of the puzzle:
and when they reveal the true message
that makes everything that has come before,
everything they have shown and demonstrated –
like a conductor of music
with an audience of instruments
in front of them and under their power –
everybody feels something profound,
and when the artist, the star, the entertainer,
the virtuoso leaves the stage for the last and final time
the cheers and the response is electric –
and, in truth, you don’t want the magic to ever end.
When the show is over,
and you, the audience,
have to leave the theatre,
everyone is awash with great and magnificent emotions –
and as they walk away,
everybody cannot wait until the next time
they are in the audience, and can be a witness,
to the entrancing showmanship
of the remarkable Showman.
My Poem ‘Dramarama’
At school I wasn’t a born actor,
however I didn’t mind a bit of drama;
in drama class, I was always shy to take part at first –
however when I did have to act and play
a quickly improvised part
it didn’t take me long
to make the part I was playing my own,
have fun, and revel in the exposure of the stage I was on –
and thinking back I think I actually liked
creating a character, talking in a different accent,
because it always gave the creative side of me
a much-needed burst.
I can still remember my drama classes now,
and my drama teacher Mr. Brooks;
I can still remember Mr. Brooks telling me
how “natural” I was as an actor,
and if I wanted he could potentially
get me an audition somewhere –
I remember him telling me that:
“you have something a lot of great actors have,
something that is natural,
which can’t be learned from reading a book.”
In another life, right now, who knows,
I could be an actor, a performer, a film-star,
a television personality, perhaps a soap opera regular?
If I had not picked art as the subject
in my final years at school that I wanted to focus on,
who knows which path my life might have taken,
and who I would be?
In another life, I could be on stage somewhere
performing Shakespeare, in a film,
acting opposite my favourite acting hero,
or even living in America,
on the verge of having my own Walk of Fame gold star?
If I had been bitten hard by the acting bug,
I wonder if my life would have been
radically different than it is now?
I wonder if I would have ever written
any sort of poem, or a single line of poetry?
Choices, especially life-changing choices,
don’t always appear as they are, as they seem,
when we are faced with them;
whether to go in one way or another
is a choice that you sometimes just have to make
in the moment and hope that everything turns out for the best.
Every performer, or actor,
at the beginning of their performance life
gets stage-fright – and some still do
before every time they walk out on a stage,
and meet their audience –
and that to me is always an indication, at least in part,
that whoever they are and whatever they are doing
means something to them;
and finding your way and your confidence
to be comfortable in moments of exposure,
in one way or another, for most people,
especially actors, is the big test.
Life, theatre, connection, caring, drama,
creativity, motivation, the feeling of butterflies in your stomach,
can seem scary at first, but after a while you love it,
you want it, you need it, you thrive on it;
and what comes after: the response, the applause,
the smiles, the joy, and if you are lucky the love and respect
that you are lavished with, for putting yourself out there
for other people to see and critique;
because, to me, no matter what kind of actor you are,
and in which form your acting takes place,
you are making art for somebody,
and it is the same if you are any kind of performer;
and, as William Shakespeare himself said:
“All the world’s a stage…”;
and as long as there is life,
there will always be drama.
markthepoet.me 