Life In A Graduated Cylinder Poem by Frederick Kesner

'Why are our lives so pegged
on tests and calibrations....? '

I wondered one day at lab:
'Are we just numbers and specimens
on some giant petrie dish
calibrated & graduated
like some cylindrical tube....? '

Heaven forbid that we be siphoned-in
and spun around in an autoclave.
'Is the tugging and pulling
a centrifugal force that separates
the real me from impurity? '

And when I come out after experimentation -
my school, my government, my society, declares me
useful or useless in this brave new world...

'Should life then be pegged & reliant
on some cold, empirical system? '


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