That solemn, mighty dance my marionette makes; there’s no space for mistakes nor something left to chance. To please the spectators there’s no tears ‘til later, they're compelled to observe her solemn, mighty dance. That solemn, mighty dance my marionette makes; she pirouettes and takes leaps away from a stance. In reverence for the crowd, she finds her body bowed. The least that they deserve: her solemn, mighty dance.
My Marionette - A Poem by Tom Shaw
This poem stemmed from an exercise I devised as part of some soul and shadow work I am doing with an excellent mentor of mine, David Cordes. In one of the modules, I identified a number of personas that operated through me and gave them names, descriptions, and characterisations on how they behave both in “shadow” and in “light”. One of these marries to the “people pleaser” persona that I carry, named Helen, taking the form of a slender, expressionless marionette that dances endlessly. This combined with my reading of Metropolis, and an excellent line from the opening scene that described the stars as having a “solemn, mighty dance”, and I felt compelled to write a poem combining these two ideas.
Following the release of this piece, I did an interview with David for Substack. We had a really fruitful conversation, which you can listen in to below.
I am gradually working on other poems for some of the other “personas” identified during that module. This includes the poem “Teddy”, which you can find in my book “Kindling”. I’d be open to sharing more of them, so if you’d be interested to read them, let me know in the comments.
Thank you for taking the time to read this piece. I hope it sparked something within you.
With gratitude,
Tom
Deep!
This is what one could call, "Dancing with seriousness and purpose." Good read!