The one who knows;
A presence that radiates wisdom, practically glows.
Always an outcast, never welcome -
He who realises we have lost our way
Will eventually rue the day
whereupon such knowledge is gained.
He carries his knowledge
Like a doctor carries a lethal injection -
To the greats of the past, he pays homage,
Breeding a comradely type of affection.
Life is now politically correct;
He does not dare to incite or expect
Any resistance from anyone but himself.
He meets his friends,
and they warily avoid discussing
‘politics and such’ -
‘It’s too much,’ they would say
Of his ideas for a better world.
Semmelweis; a man ruined
Over sound advice.
A brilliant career grinding to a halt,
faster than the momentum
of a fallen angel hitting the asphalt.
He carried his knowledge like a shield,
Hoping that pride would yield
In the face of reason.
Yet, not unlike the infant who wishes
But cannot fathom or understand,
Cowards and base men alike
Dealt his career the final strike.
It is the curse of the gifted and the observant
To be outnumbered by idiots, mitigated and made to be complacent.
Hubbert and Zwicky -
equally well-schooled in their different fields,
equally ridiculed by their incoherent peers.
One tried to tell us of our greed,
Of how oil dependence should not be our creed.
The other of our unwillingness to discuss the unknown,
Discovering dark matter and having our minds blown.
Both were ignored for a very long time.
And then, to truly reach a clime,
There is the one who knew the most -
the bright, shining light of Nikola Tesla.
The man who dared to dream
Of a better world for all;
Free energy, a wireless world,
A better way forward was his call.
These men could be incorrigible;
Tesla was sometimes brash and incontrovertible.
Hubbert was weak and predictable,
Semmelweiss should have shouldered the crucible,
And Zwicky could sometimes be downright detestable.
And yet, they all had one thing in common.
They wanted to know more.
Not taking anything for granted,
They wanted to go where none had gone before.
Men of vision; whereas others sought convention,
They sought the untrodden path, the next great invention.
And, for all this,
Pain and dejection lay in store.
Some died alone, like an unloved whore.
The miserable company of ignominy -
Careers swatted aside without any dignity.
For years, the visions lay wasted,
Like an expensive engagement ring
When love has evaporated.
But then, the visions were eventually revived;
Other luminaries stumbled on them,
Awareness peaks after the source’s post-mortem.
Once truly invested in by those gifted with hindsight,
The souls of the deceased became twice as bright,
Their words finally acknowledged and proven right.
But, now we shall have to live with remorse;
Definitely not as it could have been
If we’d listened to the ideas from the source.
Value each other, keep your love pristine,
For it is an ugly, gruesome scene
When we don’t listen to the ones who know.
So poetryfoundation decided to reject a submission I sent, this being the lead poem. F*ck these entities, I revised it, made it better and uploaded it here, the only community I actually like. Long live free poetry.