Suppress Servile Stress

I rue chances missed and days spent Prevaricating whether to break the ice Hold back, keep a low profile with my back bent In a vow to sprinkle no more spice In moves and grooves meant to cosset pride Keeping up appearances to impress Crowds that take me for a ride Though they pretend to press for my progress In circumstances and instances dubious on the surface Discomforting at best When confronted face to face To nip off trivia whose interest Lies in litanies of prayers Said at altars and craters of sacrifice In which layers of weird weirs and slayers Rejoice in loud voice in an erosion edifice In which they portray me as a pawn Brushed aside, pushed aside and shunted aside To the periphery of the mercury memory on the lantana lawn Unkempt to vaunt vanity with a sauntering stride When all of a sudden I snap awake Shake my head in disbelief Rubbing sleep off the elementary mistake That nourished a thief and courted mischief Multiplied several times over In a time machine whose hands Couldn’t wind back the progress of the rambling rover Who terrorizes the present and gathers goiter glands In a move to exaggerate my relapse Into subcultures that rupture progress Made to cure neurotransmitters at the salient synapse Where past foibles in the end suppress servile stress.