It had been betrayal

And I knew it

As I sat on the tavern stool

Disconsolate.

 

In the hollow

That had been my heart

Firebrands spluttered

And several

Disconcerted presences

Were squirming

From the unaccustomed light.

 

When to my ear

sidled Senor Consolatio

Whispering of enthrallment

Helplessness

All of the physically indeterminable

Eve rousing Adam

Pleas for complete acquittal

 

And his words were so considerate

So velvet glove

So soothing a secular saviour

Of my tormented soul

That my eager arms

Would have clasped him to me

And concurred.

 

But at that very thought

The thunderclap

Of what this surreptitious

Suave dissimulator

Was about

Juddered me to the core

And I was afraid.

 

Frantic

He was already in too far

Too plausibly infused

 Too inextricable

I determined

Something had need be done

And on the nonce.

 

And so seizing

The carver from the Carvery

I plunged

With a mighty swing of my right arm

The glinting steel

Into the quaggy mid-most of his gut

And held it there.

 

Prostrated

And impaled across my knee

He now lies

Quieted

Fitfully pulsing

Globs of decomposing suppuration

At my wrist.

 

Soon I will rise

Cast this carcase from me

And refreshed

Dare the interrogating headwind

Muttering the mantra

Over and over

And over and over again

 

It had been betrayal

And I knew it.

.....................

....................