Nine

silly actors and actresses

silliness one and all

critics and hypocrites alike

acting out silly little skits

upon some stupid stage

like a small Shakespearean production

engaged in satirical, sardonic melodramatics

and comical antics

farcical tragedies and tragic farces

nonsensical comedies

there's the minister's authority

and the patient widow's dark delight

the academician's complicated fallacy

the student's future fantasy

the working man's simplistic practicality

the doctor's miraculous divinity

the television hero's mythology

and prince and pauper alike

performing by proxy in front

of one single solitary soul

the theater is but a labyrinth of mirrors

reflecting many facets of a single mask

laughing and crying alone

distorted and convoluted

living and dying alone

in this Grand Hall of Mirrors

the abyss of the absurd

this empty room of mere reflections

reflecting a false reality