We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar


WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
    We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
    We wear the mask!

The Mask

William Butler Yeats


‘Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.’
‘O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.’

‘I would but find what’s there to find,
Love or deceit.’
‘It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what’s behind.’

‘But lest you are my enemy,
I must enquire.’
‘O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?’

The Mask of Evil

Bertolt Brecht


On my wall hangs a Japanese carving,
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil.

The Man Behind the Mask

Van Sanchez


Oh it's a mask,

An object to hide the face

Your personality displaced

Allowing something different to show

Where no one will know

Because the real you

Has nothing to do

With the man

Inside the mask.

Out from Behind this Mask

Walt Whitman


1

OUT from behind this bending, rough-cut Mask,
(All straighter, liker Masks rejected—this preferr’d,)
This common curtain of the face, contain’d in me for me, in you for you, in each for each,
(Tragedies, sorrows, laughter, tears—O heaven!
The passionate, teeming plays this curtain hid!) 5
This glaze of God’s serenest, purest sky,
This film of Satan’s seething pit,
This heart’s geography’s map—this limitless small continent—this soundless sea;
Out from the convolutions of this globe,
This subtler astronomic orb than sun or moon—than Jupiter, Venus, Mars; 10
This condensation of the Universe—(nay, here the only Universe,
Here the IDEA—all in this mystic handful wrapt;)
These burin’d eyes, flashing to you, to pass to future time,
To launch and spin through space revolving, sideling—from these to emanate,
To You, whoe’er you are—a Look. 15

2

A Traveler of thoughts and years—of peace and war,
Of youth long sped, and middle age declining,
(As the first volume of a tale perused and laid away, and this the second,
Songs, ventures, speculations, presently to close,)
Lingering a moment, here and now, to You I opposite turn, 20
As on the road, or at some crevice door, by chance, or open’d window,
Pausing, inclining, baring my head, You specially I greet,
To draw and clench your Soul, for once, inseparably with mine,
Then travel, travel on.

O Make Me a Mask

Dylan Thomas


O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies
Of the sharp, enameled eyes and the spectacled claws
Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of my face,
Gag of dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies
The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,
The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,
Shaped in old armour and oak the countenance of a dunce
To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,
And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes
To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive
Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses
By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.

MASK

M
A
S
K

Jonathan Mendoza


Who am I now?
Just a mere shadow
floating on the
breeze?
This false fortress
I’ve created,
so fragile,
the walls are closing in
The world sees a lie,
a suit, armor
created to protect himself,
little does he know it is
slowly making his shattered heart bleed
Each laugh thick with sorrow,
caught in an epic struggle
to suppress
the tears that burn
as they trickle slowly
d
o
w
n
telling the story of his
torn soul,
scarred from internal battles
that are forever raging

behind these walls
He tries to fill the abyss
with false happiness,
but relief never comes…

The fortress really his own grave…

How he yearns to break free from the
shackles that bind him…

Each link a deception
crafted from his
wicked lies

A silent cry is uttered,
forced out by the pressure, the burden building
up,
pulsing in his blood
surging through his veins,
throwing him into a sad darkness
waiting for the day when
light
will break
through and
Salvation
will come…

Aztec Mask

Carl Sandburg


I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
No gulp of the throat leaves the face in the end
With anything else than the old proud look:
Even to the finish, dumped in the dust,
Lost among the used-up cinders,
This face, men would say, is a flash,
Is laid on bones taken from the ribs of the earth,
Ready for the hammers of changing, changing years,
Ready for the sleeping, sleeping years of silence.
Ready for the dust and fire and wind.
I wanted this face and I saw it today in an Aztec mask.
A cry out of storm and dark, a red yell and a purple prayer,
A beaten shape of ashes
waiting the sunrise or night,
something or nothing,
proud-mouthed,
proud-eyed gambler.