Still Free

I felt unwanted by polite society
Though I struggled politely to make it better
Polite society seemed impolite to me
So I built my own context letter by letter
And line by line my personal sanctuary
Of thousands of poems interlocking like bricks
With walls constructed seamlessly of prosody
Life can throw at me what it likes but nothing sticks

My personal society is quite polite
Graced as it is with specific gentility
Albeit with a certain eccentricity
Though it is always autumn here and always night
The moon is always full the stars shine dazzlingly
Against the deep blue velvet sky and diamond bright
The ancient everlasting light by which I see
And it is all for me and it is quite all right

Far from the garish glare and incivility
Of the plastic fantastic unreality
Of the bloated distended Wal-Mart world out there
Supersized and hypnotized by lies and madness
Where most have forgotten what it meant to play fair
Where antidepressants cannot heal the sadness
Nor tranquilizers blot out the anxiety
Of a most impolite polite society

I will spend my days in solitude with gladness
Though my democracy is dead I am still free

+Steven Curtis Lance



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