Pet-Eater At The Gate

The unfortunate man arrived at the city gate, 

A bandage wrapped around fate's cruel weight. 

His temple throbbed with hunger; his soul felt askew, 

A painful ache where his veins once flowed true. 

The city's new ruler called upon the celestial fire,

Proclaiming greatness from above, invoking heaven's ire. 

"A state of emergency for your pets!" he swore, 

"God's war with hell, the invasion is now at our door!" 

The self-righteous, their tongue venomous, unrestrained, 

Asked for his name, annoyed at the maimed. 

"Anonym Caconym," he replied, with eyes dimmed, 

"I mourn for John the Baptist—his spirit I carry within." 

My suffering in parables, speaks in tongues unknown, 

An eponym lost, with no synonyms for this deep groan. 

A whimper, a yelp—he was searching for a chance,

My name—cognomen marked by many circumstances. 

The burly masked agents seemed appalled, 

Their very heart scrolls, bronzed and dulled. 

They raised their hands to CECOT, invoked the sky, 

Demanding that the devil voluntarily flee and die. 

All the evangelicals heard was a fight for their rights, 

As shadows danced in the absence of light. 

Yes—they found the tamed, the ones to blame, 

The wretched, the wounded, the unclaimed name. 

"The workman's fate and folly is part," they said, "of evil— 

Through this inferior man, we see the devil." 

"This is no mere vexation," they cried aloud, 

"This is a sign, a dark cloud, a sinister crowd, a shroud!" 

On the farms, times and hymns rhyme with dimes and teams in vain.

In the fields, no workman, but empty spaces claim his name. 

Insight: A dog's infection also affects the flea with the same sorrow, 

Now the blueblood heartland, fallow-unplowed and hallow.