Some of the “unfriendliness” mentioned in this poem’s final stanza can actually be heard with perfect synchronicity in the background of its recording, in the person of the driver of a big yellow and black truck, swerving into road bumps just outside the poet’s van on this otherwise quiet residential street.

*****

Recorded Reading (3:15): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7eq1los197ngf9a3h5t1v/Splitting-the-Shares.mp3?rlkey=nptv26tpgt3iomardyesm56m9&dl=0

*****

Splitting the Shares

A study done among us recently
Showed, although counterintuitively,
We tend to answer generosity
Much as we would those acting selfishly

Its volunteers were paired up two by two
One freely given ten dollars unto
And asked to share th’amount, in his own view,
Appropriate to give the other to

After each one had shared with his own mate
The other pairs would his performance rate
Among themselves consensus to create
Relegating one only to the fate

Of being barred from the following round
Beginning once the reject had been found,
Jettisoned from immediate surround
With face undoubtedly turned to’ard the ground

At this, the ancientmost of sentences
Our primitive hominid race possess
Consigned to every sort of dread duress
Nor plea be heard, forever, for redress…

Imagine we the selfish, surely, all
Speedily found themselves taking that fall ~
Such retribution, on later recall,
Nor anyone, nor they themselves, appall?

If we imagine so, we are correct ~
Ungenerosity a grave defect
Acknowledged by most upon whom reflect
Ways to self and society perfect

There was another sort, surprised to see
Their brethren in the study there agree
On preference that they no longer be
Associated with the inquiry

This other sort of just-as-native son
Our social consciousness chooses to shun,
Without exception, each and every one,
Were those ‘twere felt had shared too many funds!

The researchers, disguising their amaze,
Inquiry did immediately raise:
What sort of influence would act to craze
Sound judgment to behave in such a daze

As to its finest spirits so belie?…
Were even more amazed to find out why
(Which had importance for well-meaning I):
They had, quite simply, raised the bar too high

Comfort to permit in spirits near
Which had secret reservations and fear
About the way they’d afterward appear
To anyone of it happ’ning to hear

So this is how it goes, generous bro
Before you share, you really ought to know,
Unfriendly might human companions grow ~
For your sacrifice, you might have to go

*****

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

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