he trembles before the judge
of each day’s conversation
as if anyone beyond his own
obsessive conceit could care
how the what and why
of his words play out
after all meaning’s often crushed
between definition and dogma’s
fine lines of propriety
with the flick of the master’s whip
but he knows if any honesty exists
it flows from what he knows
his words to mean within
each syllable he speaks
(June 9, 2013)
subtext 