Death of a Method Actor—
Play without a benefactor.
White brick stained by coffee ore,
By lipstick and by vomit and
The premiere we never saw.

To play him and yet never once
Lift the veil of the performance.
How mad, diffuse and often cruel,
Exploding husband and father and
The leading man to play a fool.

I do not know the man who dies.
His body that retreats in sighs.
The tremulous, at best, a nerve,
Red in the gum of the world, who
Leaves a solitary ouvre.

I don’t know that this room is mine,
This sunken chair, this carpet line.
Doctors do not decorate,
Fossicking for strangeness and
Finding it too late.

So just like that, the bitterness:
X — scratched map of ancient stress.
Liver spot, the uncouth wreath,
Character-work of time and living,
Between, each, breath.

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Oscar Dumas is a French and Australian student, based in Paris. He is the winner of numerous awards for his poetry, including the Sydney Young Writers’ Award. Oscar has been published by Magellan & Cie, Woroni, and Flora Fiction Literary Magazine. He is currently working on an anthology, titled Fine Gelatinous Ball of Pepper.