The Masks Fall Off at Midnight

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The Masks Fall Off at Midnight


                                                              (To my last lady love)


I truly did believe you were my friend.
You claimed to be, and acted so;
But you were subtler and more street-wise than I.
You later showed you did not care whether I live or die,
Or how much I suffer--with or without love and support;
You used kisses and hugs to deceive me--then took all away.
The feel of love and support I need so much, as I hope and pray,
Against all odds, to be cured, or at least to live
Far beyond the time the doctors give--
Or as indicated by many a scan and its report.
I thought you were my girl, as well as anything I know.
It hurts to know now it was not really so.
To you, my main attraction was the money I could spend.
But all illusions are coming to an end:
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Still and all, I find it very strange
How little are the things that make large change.
The little sequence of unimportant events--
Singing briefly, in time's bright impermanence--
That add up all at once to something huge,
To blessings or to curses--as time hurries hence.
To catch a cure, or a lot more time, is my hopeful dream.
I need a lady's loving caresses and kisses sweet as mints.
Such a loving lady your hugs and kisses made you to seem.
Time and truth have broken open uncaring subterfuge.
Your true face hid beneath lipstick and mascara and rouge.
But every mask that men and women wear is tied to transience:
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To flip the light-switch sweetly on or serenely off--of life--
Requires more than medicine or the surgeon's knife.
It takes humane concern in hearts, open and true.
But though human hearts are hidden from each other's view,
The masks fall off at midnight.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sometimes I look up at the stars.
Such inconceivable distance! Such powered light!
To carry it for millennia to reach my sight--
On this precise moment when my world is full of night.
All that power, all that energy!
Wasting always, in unhelping entropy.
I loved the world so much--so very, very much--
Why, why, did the world not love me?
You pretended to be my blessing, but then became a blight.
If they are right who say
That there shall be a fair and honest Judgment Day,
Then it will be known who was wrong and who was right.
Then spirits shall fly, or joyful life reanimate pathetic clay.
But if there is no power able or willing to set wrongs right,
Then evil's victory is sealed in the past's untouchable time,
And injustices will be forever unrectified in cold cosmic crime.
But reality will reveal itself, either way:
The masks fall off at midnight.


==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka PoetWithCancer
aka (thanks to my dear friend Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Monday, November 21, 2011 2:11 AM PST
53 degrees F. Humidity: 47% Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP. All rights reserved
(Copyrighted for my estate)

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am2anangel commented on The Masks Fall Off at Midnight

11-29-2011

Loved that write and the reaccuring tite throughout. You offer not only an insight into life but also betrayl in this write. A yearning and longing crying out to be heard. beautiful! -Tonya

Poetry is what is lost in translation.

Robert Frost (1875-1963) American Poet.

PoetWithCancer’s Poems (224)

Title Comments
Title Comments
Happy Winter Solstice 1
Seasonal Ring 1
My Thanksgiving 0
God's Word 1
Under the Date Tree 1
A Few More Times 1
Divine and Diabolical World 0
Summer-Brief 2
Seasonal Ring 0
Shakespeare's Birthday and Death 0
Special Brian 0
I Remember Brian 0
Light of Life 0
Pain Has Defeated Me Today 1
The Old, Old Words 0
Home Is Where the Heart Is 0
A Sad Contemplative Christmas Today 0
Moments of Memory; In Memory of Moments 0
Sun and Rain, Joy and Pain: I Miss My Friend Brian 0
Dehumanized and Clinicized--N
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Not Full 0
Love, Loss, and Lennon 0
Dying Dream 0
Brian's Pure Love for His Lady 0
Two Loved Ladies Undergoing Surgery Now 0
The Masks Fall Off at Midnight 1
Prime of Life 1
Low Energy and Less Time: And Too Many Things to Do 1
Happy Veterans Day, Brian 0
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Thanksgiving 0
Autumn of Year; Autumn of Life 0
Brian's Birthday and New Year's Eve 0
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Deep Time 0
Is There Anything Out There 2
Classics in the Closet 0
Nobody 0
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Broken Birth 0
Missing Brian 0
Focus: Today, Happy 0
I Love You, Brian 0
The Ways and the Words of You 1
Stone Cry 0
Amore Immortale 0
Reality and Unreality 1
Lyrical Life 1
Easter 0
Shakespeare's Birthday 0
Friends During Need 1
Death--A Play--or the Final Act 0
Moods 0
I Was Worried About You 0
Song of Life 2
Me 1
Oh Mother of My Life, My Mind, My Heart--Happy Birthday (Sunday, April 3, 2011) 0
Your Money or Your Life 1
Poesis 0
A Last Look at the Moon 0
Tears for Brian: My Tears Spring Suddenly 0
Seventeen in the Past 1
Clusters 1
Suffering and Dying Where Love Is Least 1
Looking at People in a Restaurant, Talking to Brian 1
Brian Cannot Come Back to Me 3
Seven for Heaven: Human Haiku/Senryu, On Two Straight Guys Who Loved Each Other 3
Five Human Haiku (Senryu): Faithful to the Perfect Form 0
The Scream 3
Life Is 8
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For Precious Michael (Written by Patricia, for me) 4
Dream of Life, Dream of Friendship, Dream of Love 4
The Power to Create 4
A Single Fortune Cookie 6
The Meaning of Life 2
Dreamless 3
Prayers 3
Lost Love 2
I Thank My Mother for My Birthday and for Her Wonderful Mother Love 3
Lennon Lost His Life: And Now, So Has Teena Marie 2
All the Way with Part Way 2
Loving, Living, and Dying 6
Dreaming and Seeming 3
Poem Prayer 2
Science, Poetry, Philosophy, and More 2
Super A, Abuelita1--Th
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Someday-Dying 2
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Zappa the Magnificent 1
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My Apparently Known Possible Fates in This World 1
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Using and Losing Time 1
Loveless Life 2
Good Life, Good Grief 1
Dreamless 1
Ontology versus Oncology 1
Now Time 2
No Present, No Future: All Past 3
Hippocratic Hell 1
First Light 2
Almost At the Limit [--A Sonnet] 1
Death-Trap 0
Broken 1
Birthday Termination 1
Moments 1
First and Last Cry 1
Love 2
Final Fragility 1
End of the World 1
Tripping 1
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Gifts that Go and Still Stay 1
Sidney Says: Advice to Poets and All Writers 3
Enthusiasm: God Within 3
Send Me Your Good Will, or Pray For Me--Please 1
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Nothing Special 2
Why a Writer Writes 2
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I and You: Unique and the Same 1
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Health-Care Reform and Hell on Earth 3
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My Bucket List (For Now) 4
My Most SCARED Moments 2
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Why More Now? 1
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Another Thursday, Another Hammer 4
Thursday's Hammer 1
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To Angel Eyes: The Wonders of Your Life 1
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My Cry 1
Moment of Madness 2
Fall From a Great Height 1
A Memory 1
Less Life; No Loving 2
A Loser, True 2
Time Stop 1
Final Sleep 1
Entre Enfer 1
Flying Life 1
One Would Have Been Enough to Make Life Worth Living 5
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Unknown Final Fate 3
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