“Play Nice” [Reflections On Charles H. Parkhurst (ed) Portraits And Principles of The World's Great Men And Women, N.Y. : Springfield:The King-Richardson Co. 1899 - # 74/100] [Spanish series also]

To me, the cloak of “Niceness”
Hides multitudes of crime,
And cloying genteel manners
Is travesty in time.

For in the end, the truth will
Get out and spill the beans,
Thus flagging that deception
Revealing what it means –

It means the party’s over;
The Babel-walls are fixed;
“And we are on the inside”;
Or “We your wings have clipped”.

It means, “You cannot be here
(That’s estar, that’s not ser);
No place exists for strangers,
We’ll not to you defer.

So take a hike there, stranger,
Our shibboleth’s complete;
For you our mores countered,
It’s time to hit the streets.

Lord, all of this “Politeness”
Is ’bout the outer walls –
Defending our possessions
And precious banquet halls.

I know, for it’s in “Breeding”
(Not DNA, but form,
Of how we bow and curtsy –
Our culture as the norm).

Lord, all this makes me nauseous,
Much better when it’s set
As norms of Kingdom-layer,
To heck with all the rest.

I thank You for Your freeing
us from such earthly sham,
With Jubilee-ic freedom,
Ka-boom – at last we can –

Move on in life without this,
Just do our lives in You,
Without external reference
To mores of the zoo.

Thanks Lord for this.

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