1.
the public thinking
that he was
one of the good ones
opposed
his own idea of himself as
snapped bone
and his face at perpetual
war
with his faith
his doubt
busting out all over as if he
had become
movie musical month of June
as if he
could be sanitized through
the magic
of popular art bestowing genius
upon monsters
in part because they
expect
monstrosity in their geniuses
because it keeps
all the people who aren’t monsters
from uncovering
their own genius
2.
when his ghost
was laid away at last
and the myth
of who he’d been
was permanently
supplanted
with the truth
when they filed
his work away at last
in a locked drawer
reserved for what was once
thought genius and now
was forensically reviewed
for sinister clues
though he could not breathe
any longer
he held what little vapor he still had
tight within
and told himself it was long past time
to set this right
fade away to reincarnate perhaps
at some better time