countless generations of bards and preachers
and poets and sages
and honorable and revered members
of our respectable societies
countless such generations
have spoken and declaimed
have sung and serenaded
on goodness and cruelty and avarice -
and yet put them in power,
and scrutinize their lives
and their words
become thin
and their lives shallow
and their songs are cherubic lies;
a long line of saints and philosophers
and prophets
and mild-mannered selfless carers
ah such holy stewards
a long line indeed
has nurtured humanity, its sick and downtrodden
and radiates love in all directions
but oh scrutinize their actions and
their motives
their lives are but comic contradictions
pathetic self-delusion;
ah, let me not seek to change the world
but see to myself first
rather than jump into
hot-air sermons and vain exhibitions