i. Origin

Perhaps just the latest one in
     a line of brazen heretics,
     vitriol spit like glistening
     coals of blazing fire summing up
     the failures and fallacies of
     his respective age—so he says,

a jaded magus spills forth cursed
     verses to the ill-paired and pill-
     addled parents of his lazy
     apprentice—a boy preparing
     to outshine their dim daze, glaring
     at them with indifference, an

indignant mother and father
     dropping off his charge before they
     refuse to pay him, impatient
     child- and substance-abusers—tools
     haggling over a magical
     education for the one son

their cesspool of bad genetics
     did not entirely ruin—this
     precocious kid the one they now
     hand over, those fools making too
     little an offer for a chance
     at a future for him (and not

surprising, coming from “people,”
     so-called, who have nothing at all
     to offer society, or
     its sorcerers—nothing that is,
     but problems—any form of work
     or effort too gargantuan

an exertion for this tragic
     demographic procreation
     makes prone to devolution), thus
     says the great wizard to these two
     rabid breeders of the need for—
     indeed, the neurotic, nagging

necessity of—his strictest
     reclusion, lest his genius bleed
     itself of all reason being
     left too long in their unseasoned
     company, ‘I keep my social
     circle tight and limited, closed,

                              ii. Nature

even, having no desire to
     be included in your world’s failed
     experiment—not a belief,
     charitable bent toward, or
     interest in, its pale-fingered
     pigment—your dull planet making

light of its end, handheld candles
     of devices with which you b(l)ind
     your Selves—tools of the Devil you
     all cannot wait to get—while I
     am too well-acquainted with your
     people’s insignificance, your

village of idiots creeping
     flat-footed and poorly-worded—
     drones herded in droves by your most
     bovine mentality through this
     truly worst of all possible
     universes—uncoloured and

uncultured smudged-pastel cities
     of your more-boring virtual
     realities bordering dense
     forests of trivialities—
     dwarves on the dole failing to grasp
     your own mediocrity as

you push hard past one another
     without pausing to wonder how
     my taxes manage to keep you
     blind bastards together—all but
     crumbling as you blow my hand-outs
     on chemical crutches you crawl

to, falling for nothing, numbing
     what keeps you each from becoming
     anything more—reeking of weak
     wills and addiction, your cracked souls
     the colour of cold cigarette
     ashes, flesh hissing like canceled

cable subscriptions, unpaid bills,
     and fuzzy televisions—and
     though you are both unemployed and
     unemployable, still you spill
     out your seed like oil, your unwashed
     masses and filthy assholes crash

                              iii. Destiny

with all the subtlety of deaf
     elephants stumbling through the one
     room our incomparable lives
     have in common: this existence—
     the only reward of our time
     shared here is that it is fleeting—

so before you leave your unplanned
     son in my care, tell me if he
     can read my symbols—or did he
     lose that skill the last time you beat
     him, bludgeoning him to near-death
     with your lowered expectations?

“Experience” and “Street-Smarts” what
     you value, you withered flowers
     whose bruised seed bleeds talent—what you
     will wish you had when your vast waste
     of it hastes to precede and to
     preface parenting’s last chapter:

the end of civilization—
     since none of you read, at least not
     for leisure, let me tell you sad
     sowers of discord reaping with
     your powerless arms the meaning
     of these words you fail to grasp, that

I cannot stand you, and if by
     my heavy hand I somehow can,
     I endeavour to bring about
     your extinction, since what I teach
     is not free for the taking—my
     kind of magic a play of light

on the soot-dusted face of such
     outdated thinking—so pay up,
     before what I write throws its shape
     into a shadow your hidden
     pain’s manufactured highs will prove
     too shallow to allow you to

crash from, because what my words do
     is hand back to you your own lies
     until you retool them into
     something you can use—prayers and shouts
     even losers and layabouts
     can utter to “improve” themselves.’