Newgate

Celebrate your failures
Make an anniversary of hate
Hold your head up high in pride
Bow in acceptance of applause
Blindly ignore the errors
Forget the often garbled lines
Sweep away inappropriate action
Handily beneath a carpet of self lies.

Personally I am guilty
Deserve at least half the blame
Accept my shame quite openly
Admit to being an architect of doom
Fantasy doesn't fill my dreams
Making reality of purgatory
Painting pictures of daffodils in January
And heavy snow storms in July.

My heart is heavy with grief
Beating unhappy in solitary tone
Because I crave companionship
Paying the price of freedom
Loneliness is my just reward
For choices made too wisely
Motives too high for comfort
Desires too base for acceptance.

Was a time that shame had a badge
Sewn as a white star to fanfare hate
Reticence does not acknowledge guilt
It simply marks a victim of happenstance
Oppressors take comfort in disbelief
Prying open chests that bear hearts
Using acceptance to cudgel the unwary
Leading from the point of the bayonet.

I refuse to warn the innocent
Accepting them as victims willing
Wanting nothing but blue skies
When reality dictates thunder
Optimism killed the careless cat
Eight times dead then left it dangling
Hoisted by its own blind faith
High upon Newgate gallows tree.