Judges:

JUDGES:

Arbiters, en garde!

A vapor am I!

I percolate your infantilized,

phone-ogling kind in dreams,

unseen as Vision.

A seer am I.

Such is the lamp that vexes you now.

Behold him in his tempered heat:

secure in his role, his repartee--

Abhor that clown of counsel, loading gerbils to my right!

Look instead--look…look into the light!

Or reproach as you will; make ready to cite.

Vivisectionists unite!

We have sung this round before.

What then? Are you mute?

Bereft of thought? Let me utter in pearls

what drier tongues cannot:

On what grounds, you wonder, do I find myself sound,

meaning soft naked meat fit only to falter, to fester,

to trudge thumb-deep through the high dingo breeze;

to void with the crowd, clownishly posed and painted--

just another pickled, pricked vulgarian,

as common as salt, as transparent as ye,

and just as loud…hey? Just as proud as loud can be?

Lord, give us more vigilantes!

Yea, I have courted the carrot, reviled the rod,

seen my masters coming as the snail marks the heel,

sniffed the withering breath of a jesting God,

whose creation struggles on, without humor,

staring darkly out of haunted eyes.

And you? Ha! Your pawns will spend you into obscurity,

your devotees flatter you into tomfoolery…and I?

I will name you what you are: stool edifice,

w***e fellow, maker of hollows in gilt.

Judges!

Let us attain the objective vantage!

Let us clinically observe, and not skinny-dip thru the senses.

Let us divine an intermediate zone:

a point precisely midway between left and right,

love and hate, give and take, hope and despair.

Not right and wrong.

But bias toward one or the other.

Speak freely then: come duel like men!

Inquisitors, indulge me: bring me a babe.

Not a black white girl boy

poor rich red brown

sick whole thin yellow fat babe.

A babe.

I will teach it nothing, that it may know all,

rear it free of streets and promises,

let its shame rock unabashed.

So ladle your hemlock now:

the womb of dame Judas will bind by my coming!

There will be roaches in your waters, phlegm in your wine!

I spit on your hypocrisy! I soil, I spew--I…I say--

is this room deaf, or is wit but a billow in wind?

O muse, my muse, in clam and seam putrescent.

Witness now this testament.

Disseminate mine sediment

in whatever stars you will.

Savor me, my Earth. I am Vigor in amber.

Sun I name a rightful claim,

Rain, no blood of mine.

Thunder, I charge you apostle!

Avoid those who appear to hear.

And lastly thee, Posterity.

To thee I bequeath my pornography,

my Hat and my Hunger,

my staff and my star: Verbosity!

And you, hard Wisdom in white--you marsupials warrant nothing!

Honor this, your honor. A pox on your jurists, Prudence and all.

Overmedicated, am I? Unmannered louts,

unreach your poised-in-rubber paws.

Unhand my person, unleash these restraints--

your toadies will never bind me!

A vapor am I!