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So I won second place in a Windsor poetry contest for the below poem.
'm kind of proud of it.




The Mask


I sat on the edge of the pond one night
Pondering the world in the moon’s pale light,
“How strange everything looks in the dark.”
“What a blind observation,” came the mocking remark.
A stick of a man appeared out of the trees,
I looked at him, startled and asked him, “Please,
What do you mean by blind observation?”
He stared at me with a startling fixation,
Then smiled in the most unsettling way;
My heart leapt to a rhythm that I cannot convey.
From the folds of his jacket he took out a mask
Then he donned it, smiled and asked,
“Now is the mask real just because you can see it?
Or is the real thing which lies underneath it?”
I was about to reply when he held up a hand,
“Do you want to see what lies beneath, and
If you do, do you think the truth truly better
Than the friendlier face of the murderous actor?”
“What are you getting at?” I asked, quite distraught.
“The whole world, my dear, wears a mask does it not?
The sun brings the day and blinds us with light
But when it is gone do we then regain our sight?
But in the dark we still cannot see,
So which one could the real mask possibly be?”
He unfolded himself from the ground where he’d sat
And turned towards the forest and I thought that was that.
A twisted little man under the moon in her full,
A mask and a question left me feeling the fool.
At the edge of the woods he called back to me,
And tossed me the mask and in flight did I see
What he meant when he asked me which was the mask
For both sides were decorated, an impossible task.