Recorded Reading (4:25): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wuhy3iycujyyg293gjof9/Superiority.m4a?rlkey=4lvwvjzxdykv8don5frkkkjat&dl=0

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(Companion post to immediately prior “Tammany Hall I & II,” and to following post, “Class Dismissed.”

There is a collective ~ and affirmative ~ message here:

It’s time to get down off our high horses, let our hair down a little, stop wondering what makes us “better,” and start looking around us instead, to wonder what’s deserving)

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Superiorority

We limit ourselves strictly
To tan and blue and white:
It wouldn’t do to go about
Creating base delight

Our hair is carefully controlled
And kept out of the merest breeze:
The words for locks which blow astray
Are “unendearing sleaze”

Our jewelery is ugly
But made of solid gold
Constructed mostly so that
Others our gems may behold

Our conversation limited
To travel and to family
Scrupulously avoiding
Any mention of reality

From which we carefully maintain
Ourselves at distance, for we know
That contact with the vigorous
Might cause us so to grow

And further might remind us
That in similar circumstance
We just might find ourselves doing
Exactly the same dance

Of desperate necessity
Which so appalls us at remove
We do as the superiority
We’re sure is ours behoove

Because we can recite the names
Some famous people of
And squash with ruthlessness
All notion of genuine love

Passion is something we avoid
As if it were the flu
Our world would fly apart if we
Just thought of touching you

And in our limitation
We tell ourselves that we
Preserve civilization’s
Tenuous stability

For it is clear to anyone
Certainly so to us
Those animals outside our pen
Just like to fight and fuss

Their minds don’t work like ours do
They never think at all
We exist in harmony
They only like to brawl

But that’s what they deserve
Because we’re good, and they’re just not
They every single one deserve
Exactly what they’ve got

Sometimes, it’s true, we let one in
If it comes from the arts
We thrill ourselves by making fun
Of all its bits and parts

It’s better when it’s musical
Or an artistic freak
Because when it’s a writer
We have to let it speak

That poet over there tonight
In vulgar colors, why just now
Genuine bright laughter
I heard herself allow

Cheap silver ornaments, of course
And more than one or two
Bearing those tawdry colored stones
I’m blinded by the view

I heard somewhere a rumor
Her blood’s better than our own
But we’re sure that cannot be true
She would have made it known

For creatures such as her possess
No shred of subtlety
They don’t play any power games
So lack maturity

We’d tell you that they spread their legs
For any reciprocity
From what we hear, this one’s still worse:
Does it for “love” for free!

Too simple to display respect
For wealth or social status, she
Entitled feels on topic
To her heartfelt honesty!

It’s too bad life’s so boring
In homogeneity
We have to put up with her kind
To any entertainment see

Well, that’s enough of that, let’s talk
About something more pleasant:
Did you go to your property
And get to hunt some pheasant…?

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