I Saw It All

I saw it all
the blind Love in all its brightness
the wasted passion in all its glory
I saw it all
in their unseeing eyes.
A wealth of poverty.

They sang melodies of rebellion
They screamed brutally of peace
They sold their souls innocently
They think it salvation, freedom.
I saw it all
their rampant masks of befuddlement.

Art! exclaimed one
Poetry! cried another
A symphony! they sang together.
But I saw it all. Twas nothing but
a drunken stupor of gracelessness
laced with incomprehensibility.

I made my way slowly
deliberately.
I drank their mad slurs,
undiluted vulgarity
tasting nothing but restlessness
and the sourness of poisoned innocence.

Maybe it was I who failed
but who is to say?
The elusive Truth of poetry
music and artistry
may only be a plaything
of our wanton inner-demons.