Neither Proud Nor Ashamed

by Eric Chaet

Being a poet, engineer, physician
or farmer, grocer, builder
plumber, electrician, programmer
reporter, editor, professor, historian
star performer, clerk, or artisan
or judge or president or partisan
of this or that transformative ideology
or allocator of everything with a price
& others’ time, attention, & efforts—
is nothing to be proud or ashamed of.

Have you yet made yourself capable of doing
& is what you have done so far to the advantage
not of predators or parasites—
but of those who’d pay for what they get —
contributing to others’ well-being & fulfillment?

Is there any more justice—
or do violence, threat of violence, & sly persuasion
rule as much as when you became aware?

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