Culture based on listless lackeys tries
exploiting basic instincts, fails to thrive.
Conniving skyvers harm harmonious hive,
antagonistic feast, with furtive eyes
divided between jealousy, surprise.
Mediocrity sets goals but can't survive,
stagnating or backtracking, must contrive
expedience, manipulation, lies,
losing face, disgrace must realize
that fragile struggles, space to stay alive,
depends much less on effort or on drive
than selflessness that spurns sly compromise.
Priorities protecting selfish rights
sacrifice ethics, signal sleepless nights.
Fragility in public sphere is found
duplicated in the population;
lopsided give and take's mistaken, bound
to fail time's test upon examination.
Temptation stretches tentacles across
vital societal fabric, leaves one wan,
alone to draw protective veil while boss
whips wealth, strips health from poor, whose tale's soon done.
Persuasion's kin is rank manipulation
of mind or vote.  Too few intact remain.
Who'd rock the boat's confined in isolation,
cost high, salvation lost, what salves their pain?
Vulnerable today, tomorrow seems
to rend men mediocre from spent dreams.