20150610 (chutzpah)

It takes chutzpah to get out of bed

To speak or write or claim your fair share

Many believe in this pushy-shovey world

If you don’t get there first you’ve no guarantee 

The prize will be enough for you and the laggards

You want to be the runt of the litter struggling

In the scramble to find a teat with any milk left

It’s not like mother doesn’t provide but 

When births outrun breasts what do you expect

If you have to kick to find your space kick hard

An elbow shot to someone’s face hell what

Was his face doing in my way? Competition

Winnows the field and the best survive

The music stops and there’s no chair

We teach it to our young careless of

The lesson’s point. Innocent fun transmits

Dog-eat-dog before they ever go look for work

In sports especially however kind the coach

Second place is First Loser. No one’s fooled

One of my kids got put on a soccer team

That always won. He hardly played 

But felt so much better than the year before

When he scrimmaged every game 

And always lost. That team never got

The pizza parties at season’s end, trophies

Or pictures in the local press

At least at the playground 

Every kid got an award. Blackest cat 

Quickly scribbled on a standard form 

He had something to show mom and 

Bragged to the cat who could care less

School graded us into varying degrees 

Of wheat and chaff. The quickness of your 

Memory or gift for math sank in fast

Repeated class after class until your prowess 

Or your lack was known to all.  Yet in later years 

The slow kid excelled in law school

Another who studied tediously 

Took over chemistry. How did that happen? 

The speech defect kid completed his project and won

At the district. How did that happen? I was the

One marked for success and these others

Took advantage of my hanging at the gate

Until now I can’t keep up. Nobody’s

Beating a path to my door. Got to

Make a little noise or a whole lot more

Just to get them to look. Then if they like

Plaudits will roll in or not. Some will

Some won’t. You can’t please everybody

There’s always posthumous fame only

Scantly better than total disregard

c. J.S.Manista, 2015