The Shill of Progress
("breu chausson de razon loigna")
Watch how he sweats behind his mask
Your burgher-man with clammy hands
The suave bourgeois who holds you fast
And whom you give complete devotion
As though a shill were not a shill
You spend your days pursuing him
The tales of progress that he weaves
Dispensed in increments that please
The vision his but yours the hunches
You plead his case with patient craft
Wisdom sprouts from you in bunches
You fill your shelves with artifacts
Adrift in history's discarnation
You find your ease in stale emotion
Lured by his lubricity of passion
You lie with him he lies to you
What can you do but wish it true
By promise gulled by time mislaid
Your book of life once like a dream
Its song grown faint and lost the theme
n.d. (ca '95), 5/27-5/29/98, 8/22/98
Copyright 1998 by Maurice Leiter.
Posted with permission.
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