I’m An Actor
22 February 2009
7:06 am
Oscar night
7:06 am
Sunday 2-22-09
from Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, 1963: "and I’ll know my lines well before I start singing”
from Jim Peterik, Ides of March, "Vehicle", 1970, "I'll take you anywhere you want to go”
I am an actor
I study well
I become what you will
and before too long I believe what you want me to be
and I study
I rehearse the words
the phrases
the other players I’m with
become another
like I’ve done so many times before
A bookie
A rookie
A loser
A time controller
A lost soul
A beaten down drunk
A low life skunk
An aristocrat
A painted hat
A roof painter
A seamstress maker
A chief of the plant
A budding check out man
A banker
A hospital worker
cleaning out scum at the bottom of your toilet bowl
A train conductor that “will take you anywhere you want to go”*
So I put on another face
maybe another race
skin is changed to court another place and time
I’m way past my prime
but I can look different
the way you want
one might wonder where I got my chops
where I got my start
fell off a tree and began to cry
that’s where it all began
David took me for a ride in our radio flyer
I put on a good show
no one believed me
A runner
A strip teaser
A fabulous reader
An academy winner
A spinner of plates
I’m connected upstate
I won't let you down
I cost you more time then you allowed
I can embellish my needs
so you feel for me
I can substantiate my pain
so you believe me
I am an actor
And I want to thank my parents