i found salvation in the
molten crown
at the end of a cigarette.

salvation walked barefoot
on its pilgrimage to me
through twenty-one years
of scars—
it walked through my grandmother’s
lungs,
scorching them black,
and through my mother’s
cancerous and toxic
trachea.

it walked through
a thousand anti-tobacco ads,
nondisclosure agreements,
hospital wards,
my father’s own clenched fists,
and soft yellow stains on discarded
funereal vestments.

it found me after all that,
waiting patiently
for a way to **** myself
slowly,
something that mixed well with alcohol,
and would leave me
bitterly satisfied with the semblance
of poetic justice.

my healthy body, mind
   and spirit triage progression,
   initially sans just
   an innocuous psychotic spur

severe psychoneurotic
   manifestations didst rupture
whence me childhood's end
   as a psychological postfracture

catastrophically highjacking
   (via overpressure)
   donned with gay incognito
   vis a vis sans
   tartan Scottish Harris

   (Boss) tweed welcome mat
   plain as day affliction
   obvious nondisclosure
whip saw mental health

   pubescent misadventure
with deleterious, hellacious,
   and lecherous mailer daemons
   indelibly etched within mine kempf

   nightmare nonfictional
   sigh hick locust plague
   odious autobiographical literature
at that perilous juncture

when all of a sudden onslaught
   germinated feelings deeply rooted
   finding shattered, leveled, and fractured
   flintstone bedrock

   viz yours truly insecure
pestilential, kickstarted
   littoral heretical, diabolical pernicious,
   insidious, and avaricious
  
   cerebral heady hot house
   embedded, fixated,
   grafted "horticulture"
sowed "Kudzu" tendrils
   analogous to Oriental gravure

   immune to organizing, strangling,
   wrangling foreclosure,
essentially usurping,
   torquing, stagnating,
   rotting prepubescent
   healthy development.

What are you trying to hide, Mr. T?
What do you fear we will find
In your secret tax returns?
Let's see…. What springs to mind?

Are there more illegal dealings
With Cuba? Maybe so.
Or maybe more deals with Russia
Than we want to know?

Regarding charitable causes, perhaps
You don't want us to see
That you are not as charitable
As you let on to be?

Or maybe you don't want us to know--
And thus prefer to stall--
That while we pay our federal taxes,
You pay none at all?

You talk of reasons for nondisclosure;
The reasons are falling apart.
You smugly say that not paying taxes
Shows that you are smart.

Could there be something going on
That's even creepier yet?
When the topic comes up you seem
To break out in a sweat.

You expect transparency
From others. Isn't that true?
But heaven forbid if others expect
Transparency from you!

(9-30-16) By Bob B