Ever feel you’ve lost the race

before the starter’s flags are fired?

You’re handicapped, feel out of place.

Your competitors, though far less inspired,

bring no thought, no heart, no mind for you at all!

All around, a sea of selfish no-talents are raging tall.

Your knowledge is of no account, your kindness

rates a zero. The world’s legendary blindness

to honest heroes, plunges you into despair.

What use serve sighs, or heartfelt care

when it seems as if you don’t exist?

You never court the mob’s acclaim, but do insist

on treating people as you’d like them to try to treat you.

It doesn’t work. Maybe the Bible’s translators made a blue.

Maybe the Christ didn’t really say, Do unto others as you’d like

them to do unto you. Maybe He really meant Return strike for strike!

It’s hard to keep on smiling and play the beneficent fool,

when well-meant efforts meet with scorn and ridicule.

You’ve no wife, no family, no-one to call your own.

On festive nights, you’re stuck with a bowl of gruel.

Do you ever feel—ever know—you’re all alone?