Conceding The Least

So you acknowledge the damn thing;
farcical isn’t it – could keep on grafting
for similar effects, muddiness remains
the same dolorous disenchantment
there’s no escape with dignity

and you’re conceding the least, a token
of frailty’s deciduous face, loss of beneath-
the-veneer self-assurance seen as proof
of humanness, and the concession
your allies are really needed

but already you’re gone away, as close
as you get to the beast without your
buoyant expectations, the black dog
growls – you know histrionics won’t
feed me properly, I need raw meat

then feed you say, a pound of flesh
for what I think – I’ll bleed copiously;
there’s insightful hesitation, a fleeting
sense of incandescent release. And it 
waits until you finish writing
© 19 October 2011, I. D. Carswell