Poetry Friday -- The best in this kind

The best in this kind are but shadows. Here,
then, I direct who am in life directed,
resolve what, truth be told, I'm nowhere near
resolving. Though in fact you're unaffected
by my affection, here I pull the strings,
and when I tell you "Dance", then boy, you dance.
I wrote the script, I'm waiting in the wings
to take my bow. You haven't got a chance.
But I can't see you clearly anymore.
It isn't you I've got on paper, someone
hollow with a mask, a metaphor,
which you refuse steadfastly to become.
There's no one here to giggle or to gawk.
Reality's a dumbshow. Here we talk.

[From sometime in the late 70s, beginning with a line from A Midsummer Night's Dream.]