"With each misspelled and each illchosen word,
"he has no more substance than some dog turd
"in the backyard. The weather, every day,
"will cause it to dry up and blow away."
So spoke voices in his misshapen head:
some filled him with bravado, some with dread.
He was as shrill as any high-pitched quaver:
obsessive and compulsive, his behavior.l
like a bad smell, he never lurked too far;
his orbit, not toward Venus, but to mar.
Starward
[*/+/^]