Fooling Your Deluded Self

Where your hennaed eyes are hinged
you fold back into yourself sightless –
miss visions stolen in the astringency
of life you live vaguely. What you say

is abbreviated, staccato, in argot slang
that means less said than the sounds
it takes to make – translates literally to
snarls and grunts predating human

origins. And yet you use symbols from
common learning, wear expressions of
outrage – carp and rail at a world you
contribute jack shit to. You say you

reject understanding, dare we declare
we don’t care, wear yourself thin in
double-negatives; you know all there is
at sixteen and still yet nothing fazes.

There is no fear in you lady, no tears,
only airs without grace. I swear no
warmth of femininity displaces your
face. I see in your poetry where

you play the whore dilettante to an
audience of mulish sterility – abuse
and disgrace your innocence, fool
no-one but your thin deluded self.
© 9 July 2007, I.D. Carswell