During World War I slackers were tarred and feathered
I admit it okay
I am a thief of time
Too much agenda
Too much friendly fire
This very moment
Intentional derangement
Movement by force
Self-abnegation
And I cannot bring myself to believe that rule makes right
Sound census
I prayed for madness
And madness came
In modest proportion
Still I hit the toll road
Voluntarily
And in this
Whom have I harmed nobody not even myself
The only times
When I committed injury
The only times
Were in pursuit
Of that other agenda
The secular one
Whilst I in looking upon that
See only threat
Torture
Imprisonment
Ridicule
Quick violence
A signal error
A single compound error
That achievement establishes the quantity of one’s worth
As a child
I collected feathers
I had a scarlet macaw
A golden eagle
A goldfinch
Names that meant more
Than the brightness of the object
Someone made me
A paper hat
I never learned
To do it myself
Auditory learners
Make poor writers
Poor warriors
Poor athletes
Poor physicians
Even if the doctrine of sensory learning styles has undergone thorough debunking
I might have been a musician
Had I sacrificed my childhood
Occupational habit
Please welcome to the stage
One in danger of tenure
Rickety bookshelves
Acidic paperbacks
Acetate gown
Humble scrivener
Obsolete taxonomist
Borrower of ticket stubs
Borrower of nondescript garlands
Dampened clingclang
Nothing big
Halfhearted attempt
And hence failure
To carry out intention
A poem is neither true nor false
And I have harmed myself
Unintentionally perhaps
Who never once achieved
A single instance
Of fitness of epithet