Watching the Demise

I have weathered the mostly brutal,
self exile.
I have foolishly rankled the lesser forms, the glib
and the more than glib.
I have stood, uneasy, on my assessment,
the tax of age.
I have been bullied by the puddles of guilt and angst,
their godhead.
Sullied and prostrated by my 'betters', a board of
(mis)education.
Quivered with outrage by the predictable darkness,
some editor.

Take any crowd of fanatics in any town in the known universe.
See how their church runs up the flag of blessed uniformity?
Quick to purge the morally exiled from the moralless anointed.
To pledge allegiance to The Bank of the Second Coming.

Of course, some of us will resist, being our better nature.
I, personally, will flail and swear at any tenet not my own.
But I will still hide in this wooden cave of my timeless mortgage
until
the
last
crusader
leaves
town.

ljy 10/2005