By: Keith Moul

Discerning fully its act, Genius breaks into a glass house,
breaking glass but indifferent to its breaking felony LAW.
Tiny splinters now attend Genius, inhibiting a full search.
More clattering ensues, stark collapse of weakened walls.
Genius understands that walls, windows, or doors may fall
without convulsion of vision through even shards of glass.

Yet Genius must pause, in sharpest peril; it bleeds profusely
as if wounded by events beyond ken, meanings beyond Genius.

It would claim, if caught, this break-in was not premeditated.
Opportunity crimes happen. Genius rehearses without reckoning:
misdemeanor of circumstantial happenstance excused by low funds,
very high testosterone, pouty libido, very much drained, overdrawn.

Genius never frets moral consequences. It neither requires nor gives
advice easily. Genius ignores the thrill of passing parades, coronations;
never respects road signs, storm warnings or evidence of other GENIUS.

Although this Genius pales toward night, ebbs with loss of puissance,
its tribe of the anointed and marked (to which totems are erected
with many painted faces of beasts) does not relinquish any of its power
with its warrior’s decline, or the rise of enemies thought as only mediocre.