The Mask

1. This mask is an old one.
2. The fatalities of its essence are not to be disencumbered
from certain casualties with regard to the faces it buries.
3. The faces–whether of pope, king, insolvent, beggar–become
dense, despondent, opaque… complex; a miserable sepia screen
of either real or ostensible anguish.
4. A real or ostensible anguish for which the bearer(s) of the mask
turn (through their hapless speech, by their countless acts, which
will not be mentioned here) into babbling infants.
5. Right now, as this ink dries, I rock in my cradle, burned by fever,
exposed to the moon; a moribund, senseless hoodlum.
6. Yes!–I lie on my back, the food of elephants.