For Whom It Is Intended

"Good writing communicates the writer's ideas effectively to the audience for whom it is intended."

Know your audience. Understand
What moves them, what makes them bristle
What persuades them something is true,
What makes them charge into battle.

Know their cultural references.
Get into their heads. Deprive them
Of ways to evade your logic.
Counter counterclaims. Deride them.

Rob them of anonymity.
Rummage through their secret desires.
Pick apart their anxieties.
Expose their heroes as liars.

Burrow under their conscious lives.
What fears lurk in suburban thoughts
Of dark forests and falling nights
Where dreams are what the wolves have caught

And torn into visceral shreds,
Expiring in silver moonlight
With no audience at all except
The hungry predators' delight

At not having to starve just yet?
Get all the way down there, writer,
Deep in the root, pith, and brainstem,
The urges for freeze, fight, or flight,

You ghoulish, dream-snatching, stalking,
Leering, puppeteer of the heart.
You're alone in the dark, talking
To yourself, alone, in the dark.