FACE AGAINST THE WALL

 

 

They found it in the company trash can,

That photo of an unknown, smiling man--

And used it in a grisly sort of game,

To give that harmless face a clever name.

 

They taped him to the concrete office wall,

And mocked him with a scribbled list of all

Humiliating names they could address--

And made their sport into a vile contest.

 

Oh, how they laughed at their display of wit,

As twenty or more lines were filled with it!

And with each vicious jibe, their hearts were chained

Like Ferris wheels to their revolving brains.

 

For where such cruel levity has grown,

They gather who cannot go forth alone

To face the moral nature of their acts.

Instead, they hunt for pleasure in the trash.

 

But at an alley’s dead end across town,

Nobody heard for hours the shrill sound

Of infant terror in a plastic bag,

Among the headless dolls and toxic rags.

 

They found him when the time was far too late,

And shuddered at this vision of their fate.

A dead end is a place where grown men crawl,

Their laughter choked, and face against the wall.