The Life of the Party
Karl Lilje


A group of people gathered once
to celebrate a feast
of luscious-laden salad bowls
and roasted bloody beasts,
An atmosphere of devouring
soon enveloped most of them,
With lust for blood comes lust for pain
and treachery, hurting without restraint...

One member of the happy group
had broken from her love, and I saw
with merry faces painted on
the laughter showed its cracks and tore

How can a group laugh unrestrained
when one dear friend is lost in pain?
How can I do anything but sit in awe,
wonder - has this happened here...again?

To see the storm from the eye of the storm
to feel the truth from within the walls.
A truth one learns with great dismay -
That a man can be judged on what he doesn't say.

To know one's friends very quickly
One simply quietens and listens to one's own heart beat
A truest friend will come to you
And no excuse will ever do
No reason not to talk to you
No judgement of good or bad or truth,
just a friend who doesn't expect a thing from you
But how can people laugh and sing
when one dear friend is deeply hurting?

The life of a party rises and falls you see,
From laughing drunk to soulful drunken philosophy,
and rising from this hung-over ambience
the actor smiles, bows, and leaves his audience.