Selective Empathy

There is a path that seems to be 

Compassionate and kind

But is selective empathy

And not of the Divine

For evil has no real appeal 

To attract or invite

But lures via deceptive ruse 

With partial glints of light

Selective empathy the key

To cloak infernal snares

Catching the watchmen off guard

And the naive unawares

They play upon the heart strings 

With precision and finesse 

Taking advantage of their host

And love out of context

For mercy's sake

Do not mistake soft-head for a soft-heart

Liberation from the frying pan to fire 

Is not smart 

If you would save the forest

You must look beyond the tree

Detaching from a locked embrace

While stepping back to see

For protecting a forest 

Can a tinder box create

Till all goes up in flames

But at an exponential rate

And thus we see

The error to be selective empathy

Like protecting one species 

Harms a balanced ecosystem

And so we must consider acts

Applying grace in wisdom

We must see immediacy

As myopic, rash, and cordoned

And calculate cause and effect 

As far as can be reckoned

Alas, we see

The flaw to be

Again, selective empathy

Do not rescind the quarantine in haste

To bless the sick

For others then infected

Join the ranks of the chronic

Do not grant villains clemency 

To prove you have compassion

Endangering the public

Is not magnanimous action

While these appear to be pity

They're both selective empathy

For special interests are by nature

Blatant favoritism

Discrimination tips the scale

And causes great division

Thus racial inequality 

Is not offset by preference

Reversing bias does not heal

Injustice nor the offense

It seems like restitution

And yet does not restore

It seems a lot like justice

But it does not end the war

And thus we see

Both sides to be

But mirrored selective empathy

Thus, mercy for the terrorist

Is death sentence for the hostage

Here taking life to save life

Is not convoluted logic

The pith's not contradictory

Nor ethical antipathy

And yet selective empathy's

Like thin veneered hypocrisy

Appearances are not the aim

Of honest Altruism

Upon the altar sacrifice your ego

Heal the schism

We sever limbs infected

In hopes to save the soma

The act surely lamentable

But necessary trauma

Some parents can't endure the pain

Of children getting shots

Obsessed they focus on their tears

And not on healthy tots

It seems like love

But can you see

It is selective empathy

We have to take the long view

We have to set priorities

And discipline solicitudes

To serve others entirely

So, don't undermine commerce

With a largess dose of charity

The shop keeper deserves his meal

In service to society

If demand is disrupted

By abundance without cost

It nudges out the little guy

In business he has lost

Destroying needed livelihood

And resource to community

Plus then he joins the bread line

Which is economic lunacy

Moreover, he employs the clerk

And others incidentally

The shipper, the producers

Also other intermediaries

Do we help the poor 

When giving comfort as they wish?

Or do we feed a multitude 

By teaching them to fish?

We want to help

But have to see

Beyond selective empathy

Prudent compassion 

Must agree

To implement true charity

Do not let moral latitude

Engender reckless attitudes 

Nor idealistic platitudes 

Endangering the state 

Socrates' drank the poison

A crown of thorns destroyed sin

And Samson brought the house down on himself

Beyond blind faith

True empathy is broad

Not narrow or selective

The golden rule--a global swath

Not biased nor subjective

Self-righteousness is not the goal

But common good considered whole

Both ends and means important 

To accomplish Love's objective

At last we see 

With clarity

The philanthrope's epiphany

With open heart

With certainty

The true nature of empathy

No Room for Giants

The world is not tailored for giants

They bend as they walk through the door

They stoop under mortal's low ceilings

Distorting their shape to conform

Their minds reaching high in the heavens

Alas, are but forced to come down

To brains that can't grasp, all the treasures they pass

And the answers to questions they thought not to ask

The truth that is seen in their soaring

Reduced but to words as they fumble around

Great eloquence turned into verbiage

Distracting their audience pecking the ground

The music that swirls in their transom

Like worlds being formed from the stardust of clouds

Are not by peers comprehended 

In synchrony, timbre, or harmony blended

But dance to monotonous jingles played loud

Their science, their art--not accepted

Their vision, their ethics--replaced with a shroud

Their stature of spirit ascending--inventing

But while in this world have their heads ever bowed

Hail now these souls in discomfort

See how your limits imposed beat them down

The next world be theirs--if your in it

Where ceiling is gone

And the stairway moves on

But the minuscule can't reach the threshold there found

Hearken, O' man while you can 

Again hearken

Consider the end that you face

If you pray a boost

Raise the roof in defiance

And tear down all structures

With no room for giants

The Hermit Crab Shell Game

There is a simple shell game

Which defies simple logic

While eye’s are focused on the shell

The pea changes it’s lodgings

This game is used in politics

In PR, and religion

To gain undeserved favor

Or fan prejudiced cognition

For like the simple hermit crab

That moves from home to home

You can’t ascribe acts to a shell

But occupants that roam

You can’t blame a religion

For the sins of past inhabitants

Or take revenge on nations

For the acts of long dead residents

A party can’t take credit

For good deeds of member martyrs

Nor blame opposing parties

For past despot’s broken charters

Beware of those that hide within

The shell of institutions

And those which defame other

Under labeled persecutions

They deceive and are deceived

As the blind that lead the blind

Divorced from truth’s reality

Partitioned in the mind

We group and name and classify

By given set criteria

Then disregard induction rules

Deducing by minutia

Apples and oranges both are fruit

But they are not the same

It’s true they share some properties

But not all I maintain

So ground yourself to bedrock truth

Beyond associations

Beyond the shell of labels

And their content’s expiration

See individuals as they are

As separate and unique

Their works and words will tell you more

Than spurious critique

A shell game is a classic ruse

The wise discard the shell

Till plain as day the truth display

Peabrains can tell as well

The Unwise Philanthropist

There once was an unwise philanthropist

Who planted his field full of corn.

His compassion was so,

At the time of the harvest,

He gave all his corn to the poor.

His neighbor, a wiser philanthropist,

Held back just a little in store.

All the cries in his ears

Of the poor he revered,

But he wouldn’t give one kernel more.

The next spring came time for the planting,

And the unwise philanthropist mourned,

For he had no seed,

And the poor had such need,

That he begged from his neighbor his store

“Please trade me some seed for one half of my field”

But the wiser philanthropist warned,

“Your compassion is great,

But your wisdom is faint,

For such charity the poor can’t afford”

“I’ll grant you this seed if you promise to me

When the poor come and knock on your door

That you’ll hold enough back

For the next year to plant

For the poor need a wise farmer more.”

Asylum

In a world rife with dysfunction

The enlightened suffer dear

They can’t awake with trump of truth

Those without ears to hear

Locked in mortal asylum

One doubts reality

For all around the madness reigns

And thwarts one’s sanity

What should work clearly doesn’t

For reason has no traction

Compounded by frustration

In a search for useful action

They cannot hide the truth from self

With defense mechanisms

They cannot dice the universe

And cause a deeper schism

And so awareness vexes them

As if they were insane

For wisdom augments sorrow

Just as sensing sharpens pain

Where can such find asylum?

Or invoke sanctuary?

Where is the place where reason reigns

With balance, poise, and bearing?

Bench Warmer

From afar I watch my life

Or that which was intended

A measure of creation

Shy of a destination

Second string

Unsung the sting of purpose

Vexed my heart

Fallow field without a yield

My passion play without a part

Potential put on hold

Where all my preparations cold

Comes to a negation

Send, O’ send as you intend

To bless my end

Warming the bench

Switched at Birth

Feral angel clipped of wing

Raised by man

And raising hell

Where death employed has left its sting

Suckled by a seraph teat

Child of man

Too rich and sweet

It spoiled in his belly

Their destinies were switch at birth

Unable to fly or make the grade

Unable to stoop to lower ways

And so both fled and made their home in me