brand of the busybody

oh angular headed hipster with your Kantian deontology bruising your brain

with your lack of social skills, with your ignorant need to lecture me

you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been

you Polonius fit only to swell a progress, start a scene or two

you Javert with your warnings of how I will suffer unless I've learned the meaning of the law

I got news for you buddy boy

I do not need to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting

I rise, you fall

in the name of the homeless man sleeping on the cold cement sidewalk in front of the closed-down Boulevard Coffee

in the name of the kid with Asperger’s who everyone thinks is rude but whose thoughts are deeper than the star fields of Aquila

in the name of the mother who never can forget how as a girl her uncle (who looked like you) stepped into her room and closed the door with his foot

in the name of the father who was bullied and beaten as a boy because he was named a fag

in the name of all your victims

I accuse you of being an asshole

oh sphincter with your zoom lens camera slung as a status symbol around your pencil neck

oh half-day bearded stick figure for whom even a caricature would hold more depth than your reality

oh flat photographer of nothing anyone wants to see

oh kneeler in the temple of the self-satisfied

oh squealer of the rights of white people to have their nature preserves preserved

I do hereby release you of all suspicion of possessing anything that might be termed a soul

as a price for your insolence you will bear this brand upon your bald forehead

a reminder that you once crossed the angel of all natural spirits

and that messenger forbore from dissecting you bodily only because you were deemed best left as a cautionary tale to others

an object lesson in how a human ought not to be (that is, not an asshole) because being that which you are debases humanity

and, seeing you, one knows that such as you may exist forever in our society

and thanks God that you will someday die and descend to your just reward

eternal silence