Mini-Challenge: Masks

my younger son at age 2

It's already Christmas in some stores - a total rip for we who favor the autumnal, and perhaps more pagan, annual ritual of Halloween. 

Last week I laid down in an aisle hosting Halloween candy and costumes alongside Christmas decorations and little baby Jesi, just to get a sense of the confusion that wee tykes might get from the layers of commercialism assaulting their tender eyes, ears, and bellies, but then security came by - or at least, someone wearing an ill-fitting blue suit and an aluminum badge, carrying a flashlight despite the high fluorescent lights - and told me I was scaring the customers, and besides, he had just cleaned up a little "accident" on the carpet and I really didn't want to be laying down just there, if you know what I mean.

Slightly damp, I complied - it wouldn't do to scare customers unless they've actually paid cold, hard cash for a piece of plastic and fabric made by some 8 year old in Bangladesh - and directly before me, in all their redolent glory, were several masks. They had that new plastic smell - you know the one, when you've surreptitiously tried on a kid's mask and the temples pinch, and the nose doesn't fit so you can't breathe, and the lips and mouth hole are ridiculously ill-suited for anything but attempting unsuccessfully to whistle - that slightly carcinogenic aroma.

Of course there was Batman, that tortured soul, practically the patron saint of Halloween. Spiderman. Some tiaras for princesses. A stylized witch - as if the princesses I've met weren't far more sinister and unwelcoming than some of the really cool crones I've been fortunate enough to encounter. Frankenstein, who most people ignore ever since plastic surgeons make more money than God and, well, I live in Orange County, California, and some people here have year-round masks surgically attached.

That got me to thinking about masks, and a comment that HedgeWitch once made on one of my posts, about masks (and mirrors being "almost as fascinating"). Thanks for the ear-worm, Joy - it noodles around all the bleeping time. Mirrors? Masks? What a rabbit hole...

So this week's mini-challenge is to write about masks. It can be theme related to Halloween, or not. Heck, or mirrors, if that's preferable to you, but throw me a sop and include a mask reference if you do.

Here's a W.B. Yeats poem, The Mask, in the public domain, linked at the website Famous Poets and Poems. He's one of my favorites (The Second Coming helped establish my world view back in college, but that's a story for another day.)

The Mask by 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?'

And here's an excerpt from Charles Bukowski's poem, His Wife, The Painter, linked at Poetry Soup in its entirety.

About church: the trouble with a mask is it 
never changes.

Were I an academic and this were class, I might ask - so does it change? If so, how? Why or why not? But I'm not.

And of course, please post your poem in Mr. Linky, and please reference a link back in your post to the prompt here at IGWRT, and most certainly, please do visit your fellow mask bearers and wearers, leaving comments as you see fit. I've linked early so that y'all can have more time to weave your spells.

Thanks again to Kerry, our gracious host, for this opportunity.

- Michael, aka grapeling