Monster

I am the opposite of a monster:

I do not show myself to anyone.

I stay in the dark of my den,

I watch, I stalk, I conquer.

I do what everyone dreams of.

I listen and observe and wait:

I am early when others are late.

I do not hate, I can only love.

I am not what you think I am:

for I prefer the comfort of obscurity

to the dangers found in the city,

with its scoundrels, its thieves, its shams.

The art I practise you never discuss,

for you refuse to acknowledge.

Yet you can’t say that I make a fuss:

I’d rather remain at the light’s edge.

In the black of the streets,

my artifices open the minds:

I am the one-eyed leading the blind,

awake where everyone sleeps.

I am not the monster you think of:

I run deeper than your deepest thought,

what I do I do it for love:

I am that which you once fought.

I am in the hiatus, at the edge of sight,

only to be seen peeking between the slats.

Exiled by day and obscene at night:

navel of the world living among the rats.