Cretins and Gentlepersons

Cretins and Gentlepersons

when our institutions
fail us
we're left
with nothing
but
ourselves

we're left
with nothing else to do
but amplify
heighten
glorify
ourselves
as the cretins
we know ourselves
to be
or the gentlepersons
we wish
we were

we are filthy
scabby cretins
with bad manners
poor educations
poor skills
for important things
like critical thinking
which
we compensate
with dogmas
and certainties
about things
we know little about

as cretins
we make enemies
of the others
who are to blame
for the consequences
of our own
shortcomings

as cretins
we obnoxiously
embrace
emotionality
patriotism
and intuition 
over reason

when our institutions
fail us
we're left
with nothing
but
ourselves
to double-down on

when there is nothing else left
we replace
trust and faith
in our institutions
to embrace
and extol
the virtues
of what we imagine
and accept
ourselves
to be

doubling-down
on emotionality
patriotism
and intuition
even reveling
in the absurd
conclusions
deduced
from fevered
emotions
to vilify
any authority
greater
than our own
subjectivity

but it's not
just a phenomenon
of the cretin
it's a phenomenon
of the mealy
gentleperson
too
fetishizing
their reason
and morality
to absurdity
in their overthinking
and their own way
of empathetic
over-feeling

these
are the properly
polished
subdued
mannered
educated
gentlepersons
sophisticated enough
to keep their primitive
politics and patriotism 
off their cars
off their clothes
and mostly
to themselves

these 
are the gentlepeople
sophisticated enough
to know
there's a right time
and place
for those
expressions

these gentlepersons
fetishizing
their own morals
of sympathy and empathy
and their precious 
righteous feelings
for all causes
excluding the ones
they disagree with
sympathetic to concerns
to empathy and understanding
no matter
how misguided
and absurd
the understanding
is
since blind obedience
to their ethic
as flimsy
as any other flag
of righteousness
is the gentleperson's
dogma
too

the gentlepersons
conflating
the better parts
of their nature
to be clowns
prettier
but no better
than the cretins
they loathe
when the institutions
that have failed them
both
give rise
to the same
fever
confusion
and delirium

when there's nothing else left
but us
we require
the comforts
of fellowship
from the amplified
cretins
just like us
beating our chests
proud and secure
in the ignorance
and all the rest
that makes us
cretins
or 
the safety and security
of fellow
gentlepersons
crying
instead of fistfighting
over hurt feelings
like the sensitive
reasonable
gentlepersons
they are

gentlepersons
safe and secure
in the arms
of fellow gentlepersons
provoked
to idiocy
and absurdity
through a common cause
of decent intentions

decent intentions
perverted
by overzealous
dogmatic
certainties
displacing
the feelings
of comfort
our eroded
institutions
once gave

gentlepersons
like the cretins
fellow lunatics
in different wings
of the funny farm
blaming
the institution
and the other
tribe of lunatics
instead of themselves
for their lunacy

all the while
the institution
its administrators
cackle
knowing
it's secure
so long
as the institution
or "the other"
are the only ones
to blame

one wing
of nutcases
cheering
chest thumping
grunting
the other
whining
wailing
and finger pointing
the terms
of our contemporary
duels
both
noisy
distracting
yet
no solution
of how
to escape

orgies
of delusions
of false narratives
of a tribe
a groupthink
thinktank
a clique
an ecstatic
shameless
bacchanal
of every orifice
filled to the brim
with what it means
to be tough
and patriotic
the side of rough
raw 
animalistic sex
or warm
and soft
and sympathetic
the side of tenderness
and romance

each
tribe of lunatics
willing to war
declaring
their way right
each and every one
knowing
there's a time and place
for raw
passionate
sex
as well as
the tenderness
of soft
touches