SCAPEGOAT

By Emanuele Bonanno

The thought of a scapegoat slithers, coerced,

Feasting raw on naked flesh and ancestral remains.

Against them, it raises a finger to conjectures,

Releasing guilt and tainted genes through time,

As vices and prejudices sustained by monotony.

Thus the scapegoat decomposes shame,

Romanticising familiar larvae beneath the skin.

A veiled instinct, no longer detested or unwanted,

Hatching at the touch of two chrysalises mating;

Not by choice, as it was chosen, for me.

Of semen feeds the euphoria of a scapegoat,

Claiming the freedom of flies, a green swarm.

Inhibitory is the distant idea of a cataclysmic brake,

Reinforcing mistakes through the notion of malaise,

Feeding on them like uncontrollable gangrene.

The scapegoat multiplies fresh parasites,

Crushing the lost sense of identity in manure.

Ignoble and branching, the attempt to blame the tree,

Wavering for lack of proof in the act of listening;

Not by choice, but by force, it fell victim to itself.

In the shadows, the scapegoat prefers to remain,

Crystallising viciously the cycle of extinct forms.

Cannibal thought breathes in a tangled coil,

Still heedless of whatever will or duty,

For like a tapeworm in my head, it devours the good in me.

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