You, WE may be rats

Funny business this is, You miss the train And wish in vain To be known— Yet you, WE Are still poets. But to speak of surgery, It does not cease to puzzle me How one is Prohibited, restricted, Cannot, should not Ever dare To use the first-person plural pronoun. We are creatures of words ‘cause when tongues uncurl, We can unfurl Flags of nationality, sensuality, even war, A starry, dust-covered kingdom, Nay, person-dome, Where no one questions Medicine’s right and wrong— This particular song, Whose chorus the critics chant, Calls “cutting: inhumane”— But out on the battlefield, you have not the time, You have not the strength to be less than kind, You have actually no tongue To stutter sounds incoherent While writers are content To live in metaphors. Ambiguous doors With keys of idealism Don’t open. Surgeons are people are surgeons (are surgeons) because They have not the heart To paint morals for the dying And have not the guts To go on blindly denying That it doesn’t matter Whether the glass is half full or empty— Only the gentry Concern themselves with this, These and useless talk, Which may or may not unfurl flags of war and peace and happiness. Piano man Billy tells me to slow down, That between passion and pride, ambition A decision must be made; And you, you on the street Beg me to listen, Just listen to my soul, Which when you hear me say “doctor” Assume society just stole. Gotta get what you need, you beat into me, Or at least tried, ‘cause “don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?” You re-reiterate. Well, I’m here to tell you That money’s got not one cent to do With it comes prestige That, believe me or leave me, I’d be the first to relieve to the compost heap In a siege of my reasons For wanting to become what is now But only now Respected. What is my Vienna IS On THIS side of the borderline … And it is unromantic, more than frantic, Insanely mundane, a work-till-you’re-in-a-cane, Fast-paced, rat race of a passion That people conveniently forget JUST came into fashion— For if you had lived not so long ago, You’d think surgeons the butchers of the underworld, Barbarous, monstrous, catastrophic Plagues undue, such unfeeling, alien Attitudes in dealing with Human beings. Try! Think not so poorly, sorely, highly, lowly of me. Everyone cannot afford to deal in poetry.