Pretense

I feign,
Thy look in main,
Pos'd with presented cane,
But well they see all me by lane.
She wants a man bearing a soft new vein,
So all these habits will belong to me ingrain'd.
Wilt thou keep with my clumsy walk, and I'll see you humane.
For women of the shallow lot do follow in a doting train,
As I strut with a swarthy walk, dressed full prim for defying all my pain.
Enlightened I am, cool for knowing secrets thee may hope to find; still thee I reign.
They begin to suspect my origins are falsely made to create a man level and sane.
My treatment seen as foolish talk, while deserters (once friends) call out my game.
But thee who had all seen it first did tell it me and made me plain,
Extend your thought for my repute paraphras'd you'd sain,
"Listen, young boy. It is a game where none doth gain;
That if you get wisdom in thy quick brain,
Rejected you become the bane,
Your presence they refrain.
These things inane,
Disdain."

By Evan Gunn Wilson