The Faery Glamour

Consciences are luxuries for kingly men,

Not a traveling player taking leave

Of an unholy company

Mirthless actors behind grinning masks

Shape-shifting frantically

Unable to reclaim the original skin

So easily shed

Surrendering your own voices

Believing them ordinary –

Replaced with echoes;

Shadows cast by footlights.

And if you are truly talented, it is the shadow

And not you which they shall remember –

For only the living are liars

Ghosts whistle truth backstage and in the wings

And aren’t afraid to scream “Macbeth”

At the top of their voiceless lungs

For the real show isn’t the show at all

. . . and I do not wish to be here anymore.

      -- Quentin Collin Faust