APOLOGY

I know you as I know my name, Yet shun you, when you pass me by. Your lips, in smiling, part as when They parted for me in the night.

But pass me quickly, for I hear Their strident voices scrape the wall Of our enigma. Quickly pass.

What waits for us? A death as vile As nails and hyssop, death in life. When fathers hate their sons who have No sons to bear. No prodigals.

They call the antic voice of time To grate upon the present earThe horned Jewish patriarch To dash away our golden calf.

Our voices, too, are ancient ones. The hemlock's sons, the conqueror Who wept in victory and died, David's parent, Tamerlaine's.

But we are forced to turn to night, To ugliness, deceit, and fear.

Once pure, our bodies' whiteness now Is pestilence, decay. The blooms Of yesterday are heaps of filth. Our golden calf a leaden cross To bear. A mark for life, it seems.

Scapegoats of the present day, Salem's witches, arcane rites Of carnal lust, mouths that drool Forbidden fruits well left unsaid, But better laughed about.

In all this, love remains in me, Regardless of Mosaic law, Christian ethic, rules of state, And, as I pass you by, I feel, A quicker heart, a slower pace.

Dorian Mode

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