Sometimes
I feel like a bad actor
in a play I thought not to rehearse.
fudging my lines,
smudging the plot.
Sometimes my mind slides to
a distant place and time
and I forget I'm on stage.
The fans must surely
perceive I'm a sham.
Sometimes it's like
I've failed an audition
for a part in a thing called The Human Race
and having been banned
from the theatre of life
due to some kind
of failure or something I lack
that no-one explained
and I don't understand
I've broken through the roof
and am watching the acts
with my back to a grey-blue sky.
Sometimes
I see evil, destruction,
hunger, need and corruption
and I find myself screaming again and again
Not In My Name
Not In My Name.
At least it was not me
who stole a killers role in the play.
Sometimes I know I am inept with those
who sprang from my womb
and I think of the myriad ways
in which I have failed, yet
I see
their wisdom, insight and grace
and feel forgiven.
I am inept with friends
yet they see me, understand, love
the why and what of who I am.
Even strangers like
the incomplete face I display to the world,
so I leap from my peeper's perch,
my alien ship,
to embrace the living earth.
Sometimes I cognise, re-cognise
I belong.
I am real.
©Jane Paterson Basil
Making it write 