What Then Am I? Poem by Michael Walkerjohn

Breathe
in this hot wind
of all vanity's whist.
Find, yet do not purge
the pains, this brings …
Seek not a secret salve to
fight and heal the soresand
wounds here by foul choice and
accursed fate; this be that of forcing
of a love of foe so heavily upon me …
this plea, of most cruel estate, in
place my heart slain dead with
woe replacing joy revealing
scorn as this permanent
smile; what cries so and
is tormented as mischief
laughs a teary suffice leading
that grimace of grief … the minds
of covert wisemen cowering, the
contrarians that find the nonconformist
the annoyance of the annoying, that life sprung
of all enjoyment, one's skin so shedding; awash
is that flood of tears … calling in that judge of
judges to so hear my appeals to once the
noble, now the fool revealed, presented
defaced, simply night soils strewn of
the vanquished … in clear sight
sawn through by the blades
of bitter spite; pensive and
saddening with an inheritance
of a free but enthralled mirth; glad
is what IAM so not … What then AM I?