OSCAR WILDE

A wit and satirist
for a critic not uptight
who goes way beyond
what a play write
could express,
to have such insight
when you had in comedy
a great stage success
even as new art
forms in your age
may expect a part
from such a witness
yet you are indicted
merely for forbidden love
for being on another side
of the bed
with the same gender
hidden in your plays
which challenge reality
as mind benders of chance
against society's banality,
for your sex ventures
were for a constituency
only embraced as romance
by a keen minority
of the culture,
others had a conspiracy
of manners against you
solely as a theater queen
in such gay romances
of what could have been,
for to take Wilde's part
calls for persecution
more than pleasure
you were so fond of,
three acts once directed
in leisure
in your great comedies,
now without immunity
a genius is sent to gaol
because of nameless sex,
shame on such a community
put on the index
for a blameless position
of censorship and inquisition.