Reptile

An emissery of misery once whispered to me,

In the hallowed hallways of my dubious beliefs,

To have trust in the strivings of a righteous man,

And never to don the ring adorning Gyges' hands.

Contemplate did I the virtues of such posturing,

Of the acouterments and platitudes overflowing,

For a conduct that rests on doubt and deception,

And a life that forebodes weakness and dejection.

Hemlock found its way into the purest of hearts,
Vanquishing in its path all of the entrails and hopes,
Of a man whose knowledge lay imbued in ignorance,
Whose pursuit of virtue tantamounted to arrogance.

For justice never reveals when it is sought the most,
Perhaps an end that disappears from pillar to post,
Eluding the beguiled as they trudge slowly in vain,
To loosely grasp what can be mumbled in disdain.

The victorious and crowned have sparkled and shone,
Across the ages with their machinations made known,
By the strangest of saints bejeweled in Medicis' frames,
Macabre in consequences, Machiavelli being the name.

Strike did he at the heart of the conspiracy of good,

Leaving righteous living as the infection of the fool,
A saviour in disguise defying the effeminate effrontery,

Echoed by the eunuchs of the divine and the academy.

Harrowing may be these words to the unworldy uninitiated,
Ill-advised and mal-adjusted to this mechanical revolvement,
And to ones with the blood of reptiles underneath their skin,
No greater good than to shed the veil and shine the evil within.



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