*****

Recorded Reading (1:34): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3gafc8ygon7xs8bdreuti/Devil-s-Advocate.mp3?rlkey=bz95wdibqzzamwf2a0yps2cj6&dl=0

*****

Devil’s Advocate

Are you a devil’s advocate?
Do you jump to contradict
Hoping by your cleverness
Your fellowman convict

Of juvenile untruth
Or craven inaccuracy,
Ever seeking to destroy
Your brother’s credibility?

When someone makes a statement
Do you rush to make it wrong,
Be sure the off’ring party feel
That they cannot belong

To any class superior
Than the credible hoi polloi
See yourself as a thinking man
Whom logic doth employ

The while these lesser hominids
Don’t think but merely feel? ~
Let’s look just for a moment
At what you see as “real”

Impatience and intolerance
Distinguish those who would
Decide to keep you company
I surely never could

No conversational exchange
In pleasant sympathy
May in your venomous surround
Gently succeed to be

More pleasant folk find little need
Challenge one another to
Extending heartfelt inquiry
To see each other’s point of view

And then, rather than to detract
From it by acid mockery
Instead will seek to add to it
That both the whole truth come to see

But you on others’ mis’rably
Low self esteem feel need to feed
You are, unhappy one,
A Devil’s advocate indeed

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

Arts patrons may visit http://www.UgiftABLE.com , using code #72D-31S, or choose to donate by personal check. It will take about two weeks for the poet to be notified of your patronage.

Thank you for supporting quality in the fine arts