Scott T. Schad
Issue XVIII: October 30, 2003
That gives your form and shape to good?
How came this claim, how much the price
This noble trait, this Sacrifice?
How do you live? What do you reap?
While I toil you nobly sleep
You do no work--you sacrifice
What could you give at any price?
Do you give praise or accolade
To those things you could not have made?
The creator, inventor, artist too--
Do they not stir the best in you?
What of the plagues that men endure?
Hail you the man who finds the cure?
No. You praise the weak, the meek, devout
And those who hand the blankets out
You need their suffering, you need their pain
They are the means to fuel your gain
For in your world your greatest trait
Is sacrifice to the unfortunate
You send a few dollars to the starving horde
And reap in the next life Heaven's reward
Who designed this racket, this numbers game
That bribes pity with post-mortem fame?
The more you help the better you feel
But a beggar's handout is a single meal
A hollow bargain and cheaply bought
Is this the moral your God hath wrought?
What is the moral? What is the right?
A token of pity or one of spite?
Raise your standard, let me see
The soiled white flag of charity
Perhaps the moral lies inside
In men alive with self-made pride
Men that raise themselves by thought
Care not for what your god hath wrought
The men of first steps, of far sight
Seek only the best and only their right
Achieving the moral by building their worth
Constructing a Heaven here on earth
I hand you a check--I give you a choice
Feed the destitute and rejoice
Punch your ticket one time more
For safe passage through Heaven's door
Or send your moral check instead
To a man who claims all can be fed
He invents a machine to harvest grain
And all he asks is personal gain
He seeks a loan and not a gift
How say you with your moral thrift?
Feed one man to please your prophet
Or invest with him to win and profit?
Consider if you sign his pact
Who benefits from such an act?
Inventor, investor, builder, bum
Enrich them all in the final sum
Share this man's dream, but understand
That erasing hunger from the land
Becomes just a fact and not his goal
No duty binds him in this role
Help this inventor achieve his best
Will your morality pass the test?
A lone creator with one insight
Can bathe mankind in newfound light
His own happiness his highest cause
The creator strips the world of laws
Designed to compel, coerce, enslave
His is the life he works to save
By seeking the good within himself
The creator makes his moral wealth
And the secret, since our world began
Is that all we have we owe to such men.
(C) 2003, Scott T. Schad. All Rights Reserved.
Scott T. Schad is a poet, Objectivist thinker, geologist, writer and contributor to The Rational Argumentator. He can be contacted at stschad@yahoo.com. He has several non-fiction articles to his
credit and a short story coming out in the Feb. 2004 issue of the FreeRadical.