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Poetry

Us Poor People

by Mike Fuller

“Mankind?,” said Hobbes,
“They’re brutal slobs;
But that is nature’s fee.”

To Rousseau’s mind
Mankind was kind
If brought up naturally.

Church Fathers pin
Down Adam’s sin
For all our misery.

We share the blame
Of Adam’s shame,
And that’s heredity.

And Leibnitz claimed
The sick and maimed
Were doing quite comfortably.

(Viewed in the sight
Of God’s delight,
He thought, you would agree.)

While Plato guessed
God did his best
With Chaos imperfectly.

A Gnostic thinks
The whole world stinks
Since the best is not to be.

“The world,” said Blake,
“Is pure as a lake;
It’s your dirty eyes can’t see!”

Do we blame God
For man, poor sod,
Ourselves, or Necessity?