That awful man
Lint and peppermints,
shoulder scurf,
odiferous breath,
wretched voice which makes bad opinions worse.
We intuit some science behind it all, implicit in the frequency range of it,
in it's mucoid blockages and nasal flattening,
in how artless it reveals itself
as excitement overwhelms it
cracks it's dull veneer, animalises it
to honk and squeal
in it's blind mole groping for approval, in the pleading implicit in it,
all of it corresponding to a
like congestion of the soul, to a vulnerability that
invites cruelty. We see it all laid out, as though we could plot it
on a graph, the shape of it, just where it is pinched and depressed,
where cramped and deformed by shame and fear.
Something sadistic rears up in us
Imperious and disdainful
Take this wretch away
And dispose of him!