Epistle iii

What if the notions of leisure
and entertainment were defunct?
Celibacy, vegetarianism, tee-totality-
the Shavian trilogy, our game:
we'd certainly get more plays written.
In the new republic
the only sin will be to fail to see
that everything's just a point in a spectrum:
male-female; birth-death; darkness-light;
and the value traditionally given each point
a vestige: silly, feudal, invalid, agricultural,
and that we needn't work.
'No', say the 1%,
you must work and whelp!
the wages of wages are....more wages-
happiness consists in the accumulation of goods!
Happiness means-
(don't tell us, we'll tell you)
more soldiers. More workers.
The more of them, the cheaper the labor for us,
the more dependent, the more depleted you get
and the richer we get-
a good thing, no?

poem by Morgan Michaels
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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