Clarity

The scale was balanced perfectly,
Both sides ugly yet neither likelier -
Was this just an ugly dream forced unto me?
Or reality I must share with every other?

A dozen voices sounded, fuelling the barrage
In the dark, secret chamber of bittersweet assembly
Oh how they came together and invoked sacrilege!
An image wrought with repulsive disharmony.

Childish outlines boxed together portions of the image
Unseen hands scrawled across them messy labels in crayon.
“Unity!” sought a voice, clubbing cloud and wave
And thus sky and sea were one, discounting the horizon.



A voice mocked the stark light reflecting off a steeple,
“Garish, primitive bacteria” the man’s stars were reduced to.
Another spoke of a castled king, bemoaned the fate of his people
Of miniscule men and homes shredded to bits in the whirlpool.

Scandal after another! I was numbed to the fight
But their devious, twisted barbs I could no longer disregard.
I retorted as I knew best - I sat down to write
And thus I rant in defense of clarity; I write to end this spar.

Most onlookers figure the loudest must surely know it best,
They argue - “Would the poor man yell so if he didn’t?”
Alas! Mistake them not, if only at my behest,
For connoisseurs of art or interpreters of true intent.

Chaotic voices in our heads, they must lead us to ambiguity
Blinded as they are to the evident, the straightforward.
But from my moonlit perspective -and this I offer in triumphant glory-
I see only a spirited clump of grass inching smartly heavenward.