Spectator Sport

Middle balcony

where reporters are filed

and whores are stashed

doesn't seem so long ago

Middle balcony

up in the branches

the birds mast

where cackles sink

and wails lilt

into the rafters

it used to be so

Middle balcony

cast in the dark

as a side remark

of jesterly hospitality

and for courtly banality

Middle balcony

too far to catch

the rigs and ropes

behind the magic

show down stage

Middle balcony

posts up extras 

for the epic play

with broken legs

and body doubles

Middle blacony

 is a caste idealist 

for the grand finale

leap of revelry 

one must take

into the pit

of the old

Globe.

Image of painting by Thomas Francis Dicksee, Juliet on the balcony (1875) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.