Magicians do seem to love their fancy dress
– flowing robes and funny hats and amulets like a rap star’s bling.
I’ve got ceremonial attire too.
A bulky jacket with frayed sleeves, old blue jeans almost faded to white,
mud-streaked sneakers with the soles rubbed thin.
People don’t see you when they think you’re a bum.
Their eyes instinctively slide off you, avoid your gaze.
They lower their heads and walk a little faster
lest your misfortune prove contagious or you act crazy towards them.
You can slip anywhere, do anything.
Mumble prayers aloud, make weird hand gestures,
arrange a magpie’s nest of colorful offerings
under a nymph-swollen tree,
stand at a crossroads staring vacantly into space for twenty minutes,
lost in trance.
When you are invisible and on the margins
you have absolute freedom
because no one cares about you.
where words grow like leaves
Sometimes it is better to be ignored than to be noticed…
I’d say that’s true most of the time.
This is very true. If I walk onto a scene in an official capacity- meaning in one uniform or another- I have EVERYONE’s attention. If I walk past a scene in street clothes, I can ogle all I want and no one seems to notice. It’s kind of unnerving, at first, but after a while you get used to it.
Clothes maketh the man, somebody — probably Shakespeare — once said.