Lost in Bitter Gaze

by Sy Roth

Ovid’s disambiguation rests on his face.
Their lies overwhelm him.

Behind his cheerful masque
He finds another face to hide behind.

He prances for them,
A jester in motley.

They obfuscate
with their vacant, guffawing unrealities.

His eyes wine-sparkled
Dart hither and yon in their sockets.

They sweep the masses into their choking cloud,
Shoo them away into their respective corners.

His eyes crinkle, lids droop downward
To dim their radiance.

Their lips rumba
A jumble of consonants, rumbled in assonance.

He hides in their lingua franca,
muffled, chattering tongues.

They huff and puff
prevarications  ride afloat on flaccid waves.

He gets caught in the glow of their untruths,
Beneath klieg lights and their chicanery.

They metamorphose into a void
Replete with a lapel of prideful pins.

Behind them the flags flap noisily.
Before him, the hordes flap in his breeze,

Lost in a bitter gaze at them,
They ignore his omissions.