Impersonating Disguises

Upon a chameleon playscape

green and brown-legged others

merge with branch and tree so well

existence goes unnoticed

Beyond walk other masked armies

their harlequin façades ablaze

burning layers of today's yesterday

into tomorrow's today

On trudges this costume of time

some label today's

heroine girl

hero boy

girl/boy

Barbie

Ken

politician

evangelist

All primping at mirrors

innocent they're not

they know

but deny

they see

but ignore

for there's money to made

jewels to flaunt

and minds to plunder

Onward

unabashedly priming our expectations

projecting on thirty by twenty-foot walls

flat screen

palm screen

it doesn't matter

Flailing platinum locks

and iron pumping biceps

glossy pundit voices

and cross-bedecked cowards

all charge across the next threshold

into sparkling eyes not yet grown

to knowingly drown personal identity

through über-sized windows of persuasion

All the while

as hearts pull asunder

lives twist and rip apart

by the flicker of a screen that knows not its own mask

The layers seem to have no end

rendering the pancake of life's make-up

as but one weigh station

among the many

providing momentary respite

for fade-out's forever hoorah

The clouds

The trees

The births

The deaths

simple wrinkles continuing their tributary journey

gradually joining the other façades

that slip and slide

beneath the nips and tucks

of Nature's grand scheme

For even as lava pours

so too its heat must wane

as time fulfills its destiny

on a chameleon playscape

of impersonating disguises