Each morning when I rise
Why, my Lord, I ask
Hath this unsalted onus
On me compelled
Which in a single swipe
Effaces
Whatever distinctions
Altos or falsettos
Elsewhere encoded
As hither
Cowed and crouched
I sit
In a chambre
Intentionally made
For one
Whereunto washing
In a self-attuned timbre
My most sacred ego
A task
I wouldn't dare entrust
Another
Albeit a task
Another wouldn't conduct
For money's sake
Or honor's take
Not e'en the scavenger
Elsewise despised
Seemingly this moment alas
Besides me crouched
And grinning
And bragging
And betting
And washing quite well indeed
His indubious own!

But when I see poverty
And injustice
Harrowing some
While others thrive
In wealth
Power
And sophistry
I pause and think
Of the queer God
Who created man:
Dictum . . . Factum . . . Rectum
What omnibum!
Ah!
The Lord knew mighty well
His job
Mankind saving
In that desperately last
Discreet erratum
Once, an unpleasant task
But nigh alas
A pleasurable revelation
As I wash and wash and wash
And in washing behold
Kings, Popes, Aristocrats
Communists
E'en dictators!
Each surreptitiously bent
And washing deftly well
His unenvied own
In an unbroken cycle
Of innate concertos
To the undated scavenger
Who mankind taught
The inauctionable onus
First thing each morning
Past bolting to ye temple
Defaulted for one
Whereunto reconciling
In solemn consternation
The cumbrous disparity
Betwixt hope and despair
Want and excess
Asset and liability
And thereupon remain
Acoustically blessed
And indemnified
Until the next cantorical alto
Or lurking falsetto!

Copyright ©: Dom Martin