Gored with his Horns

 When I regularly visited the bar scene, I usually found one of the following types.

Gored with his Horns

Every small town bar has one,

an unprincipled expert

of political issues, 

a verbal bull who can gore

and skewer his opponents

with his horns in a quarrel.

The speed of his conclusions,

untouched by intelligent

thought, exposes gaping voids

of knowledge which he obscures

with imaginative blurts

of clever wit and proverbs.

Unwitting patrons seeking

relaxation and friendly

discourse stumble under honed

hooves of half-truths and jargon,

victims of the practiced style

with which he finds great delight.

But even though he angers

some to the point where they’d pull

a quick trigger if they held

one, the men who line the bar

express wonder and concern

on those days he doesn’t show.