To the Martyrs of Censorship,
whose stewardship of truth
consumed them before most
people begin to burn.
In my beardless youth
all was wiped, slates ’rased
down to the ashen earth,
uncertain truth could move
this face, or prove states
of madness were worth
their waiting out; pursuits
so poorly made, more poorly paced
and in my case, peerless hurts
love hit its frequency through—
tears, triumphs—and traced
blindly the circles it silently unearthed.
In that wordless north
all was white; blank page
blown to the trash, into
hands hurting to hold fate,
frozen in my past, their hearth
the hushing wind prayed
onto my path by those who
sought hypocrisy—heretics made
into waxen heroes my rebirth
ruined—burning them away,
down to purest blaze; f(l)ame too
reassuring for a poet to waste.
In their face I laugh, more
fortunate than they to have placed
my pen in life’s well; drawing forth
a louder stereotype so few
have played as well I’ve played:
using one’s pain to converse
with a wide-eyed wor(l)d glued
to my signature’s latest page,
each reader combing this fur(or)
which grows on them as I do;
this beard lengthening my stay
in their minds, binding our purpose.