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Companion offering to immediately prior quotational post, “Without an Agenda.”

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Recorded Reading (3:30): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lkzbz2zk5cpq67tc1sbv3/03.08.2024-08.48.43.mp3?rlkey=bi9m434s6zwafxypqnkcbi17b&dl=0

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“What’s In it for Me?”

You can catch a human’s int’rest
With a perfume or a stink,
You can wave your hand in front
And he will quite correctly blink,
To bottom line self-int’rest
You can lead him to the brink —
But one thing you can never do
Is make a human think

You want a Hominid to do
One thing or another?
All you have to do is show him
Someone looking like his brother,
Looking like to do this thing
Would be his fav’rite ‘druther —
That’s all you ever have to do,
Not a single other!

Even if he knows that image
Is unfactual
And of your own agenda you are
Clandestinely full
Of the unmentionable but
Quite standard pat of bull (Ow!)
Over his eyes perfectly
Sure you’re trying to pull the wool ~

Even so! This simple image
Someone else is pointing to
With such a gleaming smile that
You can hardly bear such whiteness view
Will lead him like the fabled
Thirsty horse your water to —
(Though in this case you’ve figured out
How to make him drink it, too)

Do not appeal to higher
Inspiration, ever do ~
He cannot keep such lofty and
Practical principles in view
Nor any int’rest but
His petty short-term own pursue
No use informing him it’s helping
Him, or me, or her, or you

Remember, he inhabits a
Shallow genetic pool
And came to this dark place to learn
In Ignorance the school ~
Needs to repeat over, over
Yet again the Golden Rule,
But bring it to the moment?
He forgets just like a fool

Remember that to make
A Hominid feel truly glad
He basically needs to think
It makes somebody else feel bad
And hasn’t even understood
That benefits are to be had
When not perpetually making
Everyone around him mad

Not scrambling to catch up
To his latest score of lies,
Not struggling to concoct
Halfway credible alibies,
Not worried about getting caught
Or someone “getting wise,”
Or ways he might his enemy
Unpleasantly surprise

Those are the thoughts which go around
By tend of thousands in his head
From the moment he climbs out,
To that he climbs back into, bed:
How to put the rest behind
Him; How to ‘get ahead’
Hominids will think about
From childhood until they are dead

Not, “Will it be enjoyable?”
Not, “Will it make us smile?”
Not, “Will it take a burden off
Of someone for a little while?”
But, “What way can I work it
Beneficially
To my selfish interests
— What’s in it for me?”

*****

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

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