Before it occurred to me to break things—

Before, when purity was paramount to *** and
Words and duty and the drink—

Before, when academics wagged from ivory
Thrones to never mime the masters—

To be content with being only me—

To sit in wood and ruminate upon the thoughts of
White men, drunk and dead—

To raise revision for our mankind
In merely muted measures—

To be right-handed rogue, forever plying “please”—

Why then—then—

I was Halfman in a wholeman’s body,
A fish without its gills—

A flapping Fop of scaling incongruities
With gurgled protestations seldom bubbled up—

A wily Portraiter, blinded since his birth—

An agnostic Abbott soaking up a season’s sins
Outside of habit and the church—

A boisterous Beat, a bouncing drum, and gongs
With two left feet—

A Farmer without a *** or seed or farm
Or Nature much in mind.

But, my curious greenhorns on the other
Side of life, don’t heed that—no! no!

You’re free; the world is completely broken now.