Idealism so called Revisited

by Paul Nachbar

What are their ways?
The ways of the households?
You can talk true justice for a half an hour
And everybody knows that
But then you get exhausted from the strain
Of being too much yourself and too little them.

You get the barracks ways
You get the henhouse ways
You want much more than that?
You get the jealous ways
And then you get exhausted from the strain.
Of seeking something higher than that in the emotional range.

You get such and such a barracks
Which hates or loves such and such another barracks
Or hates or loves such and such another henhouse
And such and such a henhouse with its communal perceptions
And traditional ways of assessing who gets what down to the
Tiniest reward or punishment

This is the way it is anywhere you go
This is the way it was anywhere you went
Maybe this is the way it will be anywhere you go
If with luck and work and nature and nurture i am
A centimeter taller than the others, they can easily drag you back down
All the way down to the vast majority, perhaps, however they really feel about you

This is what it is all built upon:
The gangs, the fraternities, the faculties, the staffs,the clubs
The businesses the households, the institutions, the laws
And local customs whether they are sane and good or insane and bad
Since I am way way too exhausted to say more I will just grin a tired
Idiotic grin and curl up, lay down, doze off to never someday land.