(Download the instrumental version here)
The Tragedy Of Headshots
There is a tragedy to headshots
These eight by ten obituaries
These manilla folders
Leaking blood, sweat, and tears
Across the varnish
Of your desk
This innocent flesh of ours
Freckles bursting through the make up
These desperate smiles
These vacant eyes
Opened so wide
So you can see the hope
The hope that might bind you to the photograph
Through a sweet nexus of sympathy
Sympathy that might turn into consideration
These big gray eyes begging you
To terraform our homes into sound stages
To turn our landscapes into cardboard backdrops
To use our ash trays as stage markers
To put a spot light where the sun used to be
Can’t you see this face next to your lead
In your park bench picture?
Can’t you see these lips pressed to theirs
Framed up in your rule of thirds?
Or are you auditioning us for a role
That has already been cast?
Letting the understudies
Sit in the lead’s chair
If only
To keep it warm
There is a tragedy to headshots
These smiles frozen in celluloid
These sad points of reference
To the afterthoughts that we’ve become
Waiting in your lobby
I should’ve known
That I’d never get
This part
A good point well made. I like “freckles bursting through the make-up” My only niggle is the repetition of ” the hope/the hope” and ” sympathy/sympathy”- I know you want emphasis here but I think there are more elegant ways to solve the problem. But believe me- this is only a niggle. This poem is good. You got the part.
Point well taken. This is an older poem, though the format lends itself to a bit of repetition, I rarely repeat myself that much these days. Thanks for reading and commenting.
A heartfelt message, one anyone selling their soul in art can relate to. The world takes as much as it gives.
Thanks you. I’m in the process of writing a much longer rant on selling my soul to sell my art right now.
I wrote this poem a while ago, after a friend in the theater was showing me her headshots. She was telling me about her hard luck with auditions. I went and internalized the feeling and applied it to my medium.
As all the best artists do 😉 Good on you.