Dejected Offerings Poem by Mark Heathcote

What does it take to bring out the worst in people?
To corrupt, the incorruptible make them feeble.
Till-their-differences are quite-indivisible.
Till-they-themselves to themselves behave like
Jackals and wolves in sheep's clothing.

Remain somehow unrecognisable. Just distant-
shadows remotely displaced like dejected offerings
to gods that would rule over them less than arbitral.
What is the archetypical good person - point one out?
Sure there are some, but who can we truly trust.

It's difficult to say, in all honesty, how to remain true.
Water is only truly purified by the heat of a fire.
Must we too be put to the flame and set on fire?
What separates lust from desire, love from self.
Self-love is all around to the point of wanton distraction.

Till have and have-nots internally, duel and battle.
They see-saw one end to another - but rarely-
Do they arbitrary sit pivotally balanced in the middle?
One side must give to another sit higher or lower
Seldom is there one who remains intermediate and central?

What does it take to bring out the worst in people?
To corrupt, the incorruptible make them feeble.
Nothing very much just-seat-them on a lower seat
At the banquet table, and its bedlam
It's that old meaningless sager between Cain and Abel.