I remembered being 'tagged' smart.
And intelligent.
Not only to make me feel different...
But to 'label' my qualities.
To ensure I was to feel...
A degree of being out of place!

As if an ability to think,
For many of them then...
Was a disease.
No one wanted to catch!
And I was to feel contaminated.

I thank God I didn't listen.
But as a child being stubborn,
I wanted to spread my affliction.
An addiction I had to be totally annoying.

Now that I am much older and wiser,
I think of those who had been afraid...
To be themselves.
Conditioned they were and enslaved.
And creating their own comforting discomforts...
Surrounded by a decadence taught and instilled!

And today,
I see the dismay in urban cities.
I see the decay allowed by those
Who chose ignorance as their way of life,
To live.
Seeking welfare handouts or corporate 'bailouts'
To erase the affects of quick slick greed.
That came to ease the feeding...
Of a pretentious way of life.
Bleeding...
To leave them suffering in strife and sorrow.
On borrowed time and on someone else's fortunes,
They wish to pick over.

These 'traps' are nothing new!
They are just old and tired methods...
To expand the addiction of self indulgence,
At someone's expense!
And refusing a complete overhaul.

And those of 'smart intelligent' are sought now,
To sacrifice their lives lived...
With an empathy and good deeds,
To lift these fools from a collective lazy gluttony.

Even though they may be despised for their efforts,
Brilliance and talents claimed.
They are relied upon to shoulder...
The brunt of darkness.

Lawrence S. Pertillar

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/just-old-and-tired-methods/