Untitled, September 3rd - I Tell You

I tell you I’ll never enlist
to cook up poppy seeds;
I see the high water rising,
threatening foreign policy.
Who’s going to lobby a million
farmers and their children?
Be damn sure the only dotted
line I’ll sign is a pay-slip.

Don’t get hung up
on your counterfeit ideals
– You don’t need faith
with nothing to believe in.
You’d be hard-pressed
to find the soul of an altruist
it’s spread so thin.
Virtue only exists in
the absolute morality
of the individual
– identity is retained
in logic and reason alone.

Confiscate all the bows
and arrows, teach peace
to the conquered?
– With a gun to their heads,
they can’t help
but love one-another.
I’ve met every casting call
with a grim expression;
to each admissions board,
I’ve read my poem
and, second verse,
they said, “Shut up talkin’,
you ain’t W.H. Auden.”

I’m not waiting around
to be a great man after the fact;
those iconic pen-smith
memories have grown cataract.
I want my face on the cover;
I’ll keep my sponsors fat.
If, like a rebel of the past,
I can steal a couple column inches,
I fear being branded a plagiarist
at best, with impeccable taste,
or a martyr, at the very least,
with much time wasted.