I’m not sure if I was channeling my inner Rorschach or my inner Jim Morrison, but I have some pretentious bullsh*t to share with you.

I

The accused enters the arena to rancorous applause.

The judges are jesters and the heralds are heathens.

He stands above them, before them, apart from them.

It does not matter whether he slips the noose or dies in it;

The reruns won't stop for decades.

A sorry excuse for a clown tells us

This is funny and that is not.

This is evil and that is not.

Scripture is senseless

And the empty tidings of painted whores and their drug-addled pimps

Merit front-page headlines.

Where now is that wondrous spark?

The saving grace, the city on the hill?

The children of Apollo spend their summers in Sodom,

And a simpering, capering jackanapes howls,

Cheering on the sinners, 

Condemning the saints.

There are no more appeals for the human race.

But there is still time for the things that matter most:

One last toast, one clever smile.

A joke and a wink,

And an audience too dim to know who the curtain call is for.

II

Gaggle around and see the condemned,

His artless poise praised,

His senseless lyrics scrutinized,

His lack of talent lauded.

I give you Man,

His infinite capacity for self- delusion

Matched only by his cruelty.

One thousand and ones sins parade before him,

Absent from the list of charges

Are the ones he holds in his own heart.

The ones he is truly guilty of.

They have judged a man,

But he is more than what we see before us.

He sits in judgment of us,

Just as we sit in judgment of him.

The hens cackle and the cocks crow:

A never-ending circus polka.

III

What is a thing,

But what we think it is?

Can it have a function we do not assign it?

Two points of light, two lines in the night

Stretching to infinity.

Turn.  Cross.  Turn.

A perverse mathematical equation jammed crudely into place

For a philosopher’s ego.

To make him famous or help him get laid.

We rarely remember the whys.

Only the solemn oaths,

The “never again,”

We can make it work this time.

We are alive, and we are alone.

Vases and faces, context without meaning.

We tell each other sweat and sweaty lies

Because we cannot believe.

What was it for?  And

Was that all?

IV

The cacophony reaches a crescendo,

And a decade’s decadence comes crashing down

And what is left is limp and dripping,

The life-force gone.

Interest dissipates, and the crowd follows suit.

Until just one face is left, down there in the sand

The reflection of the dead,

The unformed question on his lips:

What was it all for?

We are alive, and we are alone.