Drama, one might think,

would lend itself to pageantry,

curtains obscuring actors obscuring actions

obscuring meaning obscuring purpose…

but people build stages so hollow

to allow the audience to fill that space

with versions of themselves that don’t exist.

Pageantry fails when one of the links

in the chain of being upon which one builds it

fails due to faulty forging.

For example, as competitions go,

competitors rarely question why they are there;

for winning as a goal does much less to fulfill

if the actual results has little to bear

on the destinations awaiting you later.

Pageantries hide the achievement 

as one’s words hide one’s thoughts

as one’s points hide the purpose

as the purpose hides our ability to act.

If someone were to rip the dull pageantries down

to see what remained behind performative action,

that person might be horrified to realize

there would be nothing left there.

Words like tradition bury the places we found meaning,

burying the people who had found it useful before,

beneath always done like this and annual 

and sacred and revered and first and last time

until the act itself becomes pageantry 

to support pageantry’s effort,

rather than ars gratis artis. 

Rip up the script,

and see what words come to you first.