Heroes

All the many ways we use them
All the many ways they come to me
All the many ways they coalesce

Promoting insight
Undermining ignorance
Evoking feeling
Forming meaning

Hero
A word of nuance
Of many meanings
Of differences
Subtle and grave

In a story
The protagonist
Who in the end
Saves the day

In a war
The warrior
Who in his end
Dies for us
For our cause

Who
In another culture
In the same end
Dies for them
For their cause
Then called a martyr

A different word
The same meaning

Then, too, the same word
A different meaning

Like here
In the studio
Where stories are filmed

For the property master
A hero is the one prop
Camera sees most clearly

The hero sword
Which the Villain holds
When menacing the Hero
Rather than its rubber double
Used by the stunt Villain
To strike the stunt Hero
Or the virtual sword
Made of bits and bytes
Which pierces the Hero’s armor

Or here
The “hero” fork
Fallen to the studio floor
Playfully marked
For continuity
By some anonymous crew
As if it were a hero prop
Marked in the place it fell
From the Hero’s hand

A metaphor
Reminding me
Of the many ways
We are manipulated
By stories of heroism

So many heroes
We regale and honour
In our stories and media
Often equal to little more
Than tools of power and greed
In some great game of history
Held up in memorials and spotlights
As saviours and icons
While no less expendable
Than a plastic fork
Fallen to a studio floor