Battler, cage-rattler,
hero of the minor skirmish;
let us sing praises
for his small bloodsheddings.
Let us sacrifice
a mouse in his honor.
Fighter for the right to be right,
soldier of trivial fortune;
let us raise hankerchiefs
in his colors.
Let us weep openly
at his tiny scabs.
Warrior of grammar,
defender of the detail.
Corrector of facts,
last man standing
on the field of struggle
for what comes right
of the decimal point.
Armored saintlet.
Battered ram.
Scowling, snarling,
snarking war-troll
of destruction and
annoyance —
let us unblock him,
let us defend him
from defriending,
let us watch
from the sidelines
as he steps where no one
cares to tread —
for this is where we live now,
and he’s all we’ve got
to pretend with.
Dark Matter 
January 3rd, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Also, I believe that an observant, sensitive mind is a powerful resource. If you have a good mind, it’s not necessarily a duty (because that word connotes something onerous) but a mission or vocation to do something creative and generative with it. Who cares if the world uses its impoverished vocabulary and repertoire of concepts to describe you? At some point you must choose which set of standards and which vocabularies you’re going to use to help yourself make sense of yourself.
January 3rd, 2012 at 8:43 pm
The “armored saintlet” may be laughable, but the poem about him certainly is not. I love the attention to fine detail in this one, which does ironically seem to become the speaker’s chosen object of derision.
Funnily enough, these “battered rams” and “corrector[s] of facts” are the ones I am drawn to again and again, I think because they represent a truly heroic attempt to make some kind of legible, graspable sense of the world they live in. I just get bored with people who don’t want to do the hard work of recording, summing, playing with thoughts.
January 3rd, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Well, it was just meant as a bit of humor on the Internet flame war phenomenon…wasn’t aiming for a deep commentary this time anyway.
January 4th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Ah, now I feel a little silly. 🙂
Still, it is well-crafted and pleasing to read.
January 4th, 2012 at 10:58 am
Thanks! Been in a few flame wars in my time…always entertaining and SO IMPORTANT at the time…