Opaque

Paper-thin characters come alive

unfettered imagination with drive

fecundates the womb of origins

ink delivers marvelous stories.

Fiction is fleshed out and thrives

from the germ of inspiration grows

a seedling increasing in size

to a giant tree whose foliage glows.

Out of its wooden bark

twin masks are carved

one puts on a toothless grin

the other tears to its chagrin.

Let the people beware,

of the masks' interior sheen

reflections that ensnare

many lives within a scene.

Talent is the requirement

otherwise the lights will blind

elocution, both loud and silent

always ethically inclined.

By donning a specific guise

mood aid created in the soul

pieces sewn to harmonise

together acting as a thole.

A fulcrum for rowing the vastness

of roguish oceanic tempests

gives to questions some answers

appease their deepest resentments.

With arguments stitched in patterns

as trustworthy speech as honesty

an imitative act without hypocrisy

emergent word made of tatters.

Meagre rhetoric without a character

lost and lacking in divine spices

opaque veneer of tuxedo and fur

oarless in an ordeal of identity crises.