human devotion
is
the act of being nice to the one big mean guy
in hopes that
he
will keep the lots of little mean
guys
away from you


and we are as ever we have been,
each our own gods
  each our own
devils


as we simple works in
progress seek always to
shed responsibilities and
point the
finger
elsewhere

and there are no
jokes :

only the strangled words of
what
we really mean to
say .