A jaundiced adaptation
    of fillers raucous threats

attempts obsolete mimicking
   in a conspicuous pomposity
     of disfigured reckonings  

slipped us the tongue of your
    ostentatious audacity
mid judgmental manifestations

Disengaged, as our eyes grew dim
     ' neath the masquerade
            of multiplex duplicity


**who the ******* do you think you are?

forced to ask 'is it all *******'
this field of study just completed
this path now flying feet fleet'd
I, alumni all outwardly faux alacrity
but instead really inside shades drawn
hiding shame useless
waiting for the sun's forebearant rays
to pull dead drunk me off floor again
still sick sinning spinning lies
on nodal web patterns
of activation

just a narcissist sociopath-in-training
(was I?) being taught how better
to manipulate other's fate
for personal gain

great fat magnificent magnanimous beast
loafing on liar's chair o'great victory-defeat
doublespeak tho Orwell is long dead and we do mourn him so with eulogy eyes
that weep crocodile tears of
well hidden liars

having long forgotten how to believe
in anything aside from own ill-gotten
gains, they mean nothing more
than bloodstained verses
anemic murmurs
whispered great
whisky hopes
and sallow
cheeked
dreams

Your hands may be gentle,
Your eyes may be kind,
But lurking beneath,
Is a sick, twisted mind.

i've lied my whole life
writing love poems
and pretending to fall in love
and pretending to care
just to hide this

sociopath

they say i'm a monster
they call me the devil
i didn't ask for this

just because i can't feel for you
doesn't mean i can't feel.

St. Catharines light in the afternoon: lead oxide, pink white, dry mud shadows.
They lay on her living room carpet and Anthony gloated over Milly
Her cotton nightgown, her long back, and round shoulders: proof at last.
"So this is gloating. It is better to gloat than to doubt. It took me a long time."

Her clean faded quilt brought from the balcony rail: it
Smells of clean laundry and cold air and the thrill of their power.
He’s proud to be the lover of a heroine,
And happy that he can see her this way.”

Picnic kisses tasting of smoked oysters and beer.
There were never friendly kisses of love before?
"Milly, I love hearing how you defied the adults."

He told Hansel and Gretel to her child, who had strep throat,
And told it again, knowing it would work,

Seeing the bookshelves, seeing her notebooks,
Knowing that he would have his life after all:

                      The mispronounced words of a solitary reader,
                       The red skirt on the chair, the gold necklace of coins.


                   Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
Copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson