You Get What You Give

 You Get What You Give

 

They can see it's you, hiding at the back,

in a plump, black dress badly packed

like two jacket potatoes in a sack,

thick with blotchy skin, thin with fact,

but it’s not you, it’s a spark you lack

that comes from something, somewhere,

they see clearly how you'd never care

to light classroom fire, strike flint on flint,

and watch hot headed hammer hit.

If you never try, never forage firewood,

or lift to look beneath a hot tin hood,

dream harder into something good,

fuel your empty mind to stir the blood,

just smile at them to show the love:

then nothing will have nothing known

while nothing is to nothing shown

and in this joyful throng you stand alone

to stare like a moron into your phone.

Here’s another one of you flocking near,

sports bald head and slobbered beard

wired wrong, seems something weird,

approximately what most children fear,

babbles dismal brooks in tones drear,

they say he will not teach another year.

Let him let fly your hand derivative,

in reminder that you get what you give.