How Poetry Should Be

Maybe this is how poetry should be -
Plain and patient,
Filtered of those translucent words
That leave blanks in your mind
You cannot fill -
Nothing to digest,
Just to swallow - slowly -
Like gulps of clear water,
Smooth and slippery
And clean -
Maybe.

Shadows On The Stage

Have we all become the antagonists?

The ones who cry wolf
And smile with teeth
Like polished daggers.

What are heroes but the ones
With their best side
Against the spotlight?

Because when the curtain falls
And the stage lights dim,
There is a darkness
No darker than any other
Spreading, consuming,
Like an infection.

We belong to our shadows -
We are not the masks we wear,
We are beneath them.

We are of a certain kind -
Perhaps not the beholders
We believe ourselves to be,
And the beauty we see
Only surrounds us.

Beneath the skin we are bone.
When we decompose,
Who knows
How we will be known?