Subterfuge (Edit) Poem by Butch Decatoria

What genius evening keeps secret
The moribund...

His foot falls echo the chill of Novembers deep
Tapping, clapping, wrapping
His man-heavy fragility in wool

How distant and suddenly wide is the night...

What shrewd skills fear casts--a mask,
That evening keeps him wary, attentive as wax,
For Shadows shed no discomfort for this lamb,
His rhythm once "lord of the dance."

Pulsing toes as eyes flash to every creak or whisper;
The Depth of his sightlessness made paranoid
by twisted twilight shapes, shifting, nerves frozen haste…

His weakness, not knowing, a pallid winter on his face.

Even now its slow climb upon his back
Carried by the slip of a breeze laying waste
to the soundtrack of dead leaves and black.

His foot falls stomping to clash and map
A stroll in the cryptic saves nothing sincere when fear
Deepens in the bones, no resolve but panic...

What genius a weapon: sheer flights of fancy
the conditioned youths who preconceived calamity,
Strange and delicate spaces between the ears
Defeated before finding a sure foot, a mind clear

Before evening or reaching a well lit street,
Familiar and familial suburbs of a mind
Diminished by the subterfuge of fear…

His foot falls turn a corner
And the sound of conflict
Disappear…