TRAITORS

Having lived among traitors I can assure you
That between treasons they are the kindest of men
Penniless, alone in a strange place, seek them out.
If there is no profit for them in your loss
They will drink with you, teach you songs, listen to you
And, when you have grown fat again and your secrets
Have some value, one of them --the one the others
Never suspected -- may sell them all to you.

MORE ON TRAITORS

Honest men do not like my looks

Something about the eyes, perhaps,

Makes them uneasy. At day’s end,

Writing their journals, they leave

A small space where my name,

Had they learned it, might have gone.

Traitors, though, have been kind to me

Listening to my dull complaints

Standing me a glass if I seem dry

Giving me coin some times, so that,

When they die, I let them have

A really quite convincing tear.

Come now! Your comments (left-or-right-handed), complaints, libels and/or sinister intimations are humbly solicited.

I'll be back.