Poem XLI

We hide our pounded faces from each other
We've learned not to display our emblems of war
A day will come when we feel safe in our ugliness
And such an occasion will merit another scar
We fall in love with icons, passion and poesy
We run from revealed nature and honest effusion
We seek comfort in costumed cosmopolitanism
While behind the red flags of manufactured grace
Dwells a wart-covered bubble aching to burst

Is there ever acquittal, or a dawn unsplintered
Into the shrapnel of guilt, alone or accompanied
By the pathetic wreck of someone else's life
All victims of psychology, subverted by passion
That easy clumsy answer given again and again
To the question of how we can stand our loneliness

We're the monstrous composites of a cadaverous past
Sewn together, misshapen, contorted by the hatred
That's the curse of a too keen self awareness

We run, chase after happiness and safety
But safe harbor eludes those who pursue themselves