A case for egoism

Something me and my friend Alex made fairly quickly. Feedback highly appreciated as always!

 

Singed wood lingers, inhaled through pale lips

10 babies saved and a couple of kids

The home’s collapsing and it wasn't even his

And now hot off the press, the next big hit spilled in ink

This is a legacy, at least temporarily

 

Golden chariot for the nobody, now a somebody and spread into the heads of many through the telly

Hailed in history and on ITV, watershed hour showers the glorious details for all to see

Brought up in conversation by individuals expressing emotion, consolidated into approximately two minutes thirty three,

Seconds of inspiration and awe followed by experts with in-depth social commentary, who argue its morally obliged altruistic behaviour, selectively modified for posterity

Man’s hard-wired to decide to be a saviour, ironically, selfishly, for gene prosperity

 

And that’s the point that we don’t want to hear, a smear on the pillow-padded life we adhere to

It’s hard to see, but we’re simply a survival machine, neuronal conscience with ‘conscious’ needs

You see a field, I see nutrients and an opportunity for seeds.

Speak to me about divinity and purity, tell me about how the colour red relates to me and how my mystic chakra energy overflows with negativity , but how the “real” me is special and supersedes rationality

 

Figuratively, I’d like to kick your moral high horse in the leg. Screw mysticism and spirituality, I’d rather you tell me about how entropy always increases…yet, the universe continues to fall into a more stable state. An oxymoronic reality analogous to morality.

 

Some might argue that I over-intellectualise, that I should simplify, lace my facts with rhetoric and romanticise.

I'm sorry that I side with Socrates and not your saccharine sweet hypocrisies

A saviour’s “selflessness” manifests as good deeds, but the seed he’s feeding is his own ego.

 

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So, let’s give humanity the benefit of the doubt. Though predetermined to act only for self-gratification,

Altruism accidentally instils genuine hospitality and generosity

It is simply the selfish gene, not the selfish species

Even ugly jigsaw pieces can create a masterpiece

 

 

Author's Note

Any feedback is really appreciated, this is our first poem that we've shared with others