Crippled

Trying to add a new post
Trying to give it a wicked name
(Not like a New England wicked
Unless you mean the old witchy wicked)

What he means is a rotten name
A name to make forward thinkers shake
A name to make righteous folks frown and snarl
A poem to make them all shake and recoil

They will say this poet might have lost his mind
Just long enough to piss off his readers
Just long enough to make them think he was nuts
(Just as long as he needed to spell things right)

In fact he meant the word to hurt
In fact he felt free to use it or not
In fact the word was said from freedom
To use it or not depending on its environment

For it did not exist without its environment
Evil or thoughtful or parenthesized to death
Or left alone to stand alone and be pondered
Pondering it leads to a pair of syllables

Harsh sound at the start gives way to harder ending
The poet snickers then sits back to fret
If anyone will even care whether or not he says it out loud
He is that and is not that and his raging shame flits off

Like a victory over an monster in an old foreign film
Like a moment of fame never allowed to come to him
Like he doesn’t notice the profound limp in his leg
Like he triumphs briefly past it and then is alone again

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T