I am a monster
Like Quasimodo
Or Caliban the natural man
Giving wild ripostes to my reflection

One ugly morning
In a rage
Father threw an apple
Into my carapace

And like the invisible man
Directing traffic
I’d be ineffective
No matter how enthusiastic

Amid the masses’ frenzy
Participation
In this massive
Separation

Appearance is everything
Nothing is how it seems
And civilized society
Is calm civility

I’m the phantom of the opera
Singing beauty and at ease
Or Henry Darger’s
Autobiography

And that is curt clues to my essence
Planned obsolescence
Appearance is everything
Nothing is how it seems
In a market economy
It’s called marketing

And not exactly clawing my way to glory
Nor whimpering in the wind
But once positively
I’m teetering on the brink
Of an all-out breakthrough

But sometimes clear headed
Sometimes a doofus
Sometimes very cordial
And sometimes aloof

I am [bad word] optimistic one moment
Then gravely pessimistic the next
Irritable as a hornet sometimes
Then agreeable as it gets

I’m not a pagan
I don’t worship anything
Not gods that don’t exist
Nor the sun which is oblivious

I love my ancestors
But not ritually
I don’t blame them or praise them
For anything that they passed along to me
I don't need stone altars to help me hedge my bet
Against the looming blackness
It is what it is