On selfishness: A poem 

It is as if a vase cracked  

as it fell from a pedestal 

as you accidentally brushed  

against it. Did you let a moan, 

falling to the floor. Adulthood 

is rife with such falling, these 

accidents of realisation; the  

awakening from innocence; 

into either humble stoicism and 

resignation in the aftermath, 

or acquiring an instinct and 

aggression that lends to evil. 

Is selfishness an expanse  

that extends from within 

or is it borrowed from without? 

Is selfishness a sort of innocence 

or an utter ignorance? Is it an 

instinct that can’t be discarded 

even with the acquisition of wisdom? 

Does it always become incendiary 

by catching the blaze of power and greed? 

We can’t deny that our own selfishness can 

obtain an illegitimate justification from leaders  

who impress us as replicas of such a portrayal 

How some selfless souls, intent on doing 

duty, are waylaid and belied by the curfew  

of evil?! And you can reflect in the desertification 

of some past upheld scruples, that  

the unscrupulous have inveigled 

the doom of your country; as they  

swim in the deepest waters of ignoble cold 

to be the epitome of the selfishly fishy…