Stoical Persistence – a Poem

Stoical Persistence

‘No man shall have domain over

Another’ they took as their first law,

‘And all shall be owned in common to all’

They took as the other.

Now the stoics weren’t too suprised

Of what from their ideals had been apprised,

Since wisdom was in common to all, and

Of all ideas this was the easiest one to call.

Yet who’d have imagined the Fathers of the

Holy Church taking it up with fervour

After the Fall; staying in Canon Law

Until Reformation when sweet lies fell.

Then, in the past, Adam and Eve did for us

All, not reckoning with a petulant God

Who’d had it up to his beard with pleasure,

And rather played it mean instead of being the good father.

(No more Mr. Nice Guy, I’ll invent a Devil

for them to demonise.)

Well phantasms such as these still plague us,

There’ll always be good and evil, have and have

Not risen to an acceptable level

Of poverty, power and paranoia.

(Got to keep them down, the’re everywhere,

after our money; they despise us because

we’re poor, I hate them because I’m

exploited.)

Curious to think about those who’ve held

These beliefs of equality, from Marx to Mao,

A deathly levelling of wit and wealth.

Augustine’s Civitate Dei contra paganos,

For whom servitude was a sin,

Dovetails with a Natural Law Party

Of meditation, yogic flying and universal

Consciousness.

We take them to be crazy,

But then, we must have always been so.

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