The puppet preens upon the stage.
The backdropp is his puppeteer,
whose screen winds into sturdy strings
that hold his mind in their tight grip,
controlling him without a slip.

The funhouse mirrors make him laugh,
then rage, then cry, or fear, or smile.
He is a most pathetic chap,
with no repose or true release.
The changing backdropp is his life.
Its calms give momentary peace,
until a storm starts up again.

He’s tired of dancing to this tune,
whatever tune the backdropp plays—
the cheap effects, the tawdry days,
the heroines. The hero slays
a dragon, then gets slain himself.

He’s tired of the plots and themes,
the comedies, the tragedies.
He knows by now his mind’s a slave
to shadows within Plato’s cave.
A close-up kiss, good deeds, crimes,
he’s done them all a million times,

and yet, how does he cut the strings
to become radically unhinged—
to cry at joy and laugh at pain?
The world would see him as insane—

the shadow world, it’s true, and yet,
the only world he knows, as yet.

To heed a whisper that he hears
deeper than his outer ears,
a voice—maybe, a voice to trust?
Else, all returns into mere dust.

Max Reif

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-puppet/