Once Because

In my previous post, “A Study in Serifs: Part 2,” I referenced a poem.

Someone asked for it. So here it is:

Once Because…

Once because “Truth is stranger than
Fiction,” the Byzantine fell
Coincident with the True.
That they could follow Truth for the wrong reason
Gave them white hair.

If you ask them about it
They put on the mask of the reticent father,
Whose sense of history
Demands History be his judge.

Instead one of them told me, “Genius
Is to be feared. Trust me, there is danger
In knowing too
Much. Kiekegaard and Nietchze for example
Who were so smart they were unhappy.”

Consequently they are benign, beneficent
And, if there is such a word,
Polypleasant. They are also evil.
In an inventory
They are the term that cannot be right.

It comes from not caring. They don’t care
Because inventories
Are like January White Sales
And words are marked down
Like this: “The word for Trust

Should parallel Choice. And the word for Choice is
Keeping the options open.”

Copyright ©2011 Philip Gallo