The following poem is meant to be slammed, i.e. spoken out loud dramatically.

It may lose it's full impact when simply read to oneself.

                                                                                                                                                  

They say knowledge is power,

But what power is there in knowing that you’re powerless?

And what’s the use of the truth anyway?

There’s never been any money in it.

Even if you find it no one’s gonna believe you

Because they’re too distracted by the rich guys,

Using their money to turn the truth into lies.

Nobody can figure out what really matters

Because there’s too much going on.

So we pick things arbitrarily, like

Family, love, and God,

And if it doesn’t work out, oh well

Just chalk it up to bad luck, right?

Never mind that our priorities might be wrong.

The real geniuses have figured out that none of it really matters,

But keeping feeding the lie to keep the competition down.

So who do we trust if we can’t trust success?

We can’t embrace failure, because

Dammit, that’s just against human nature.

But I’m about ready to do just that;

At least the path is clear and the goal outlined,

Unlike success where the line’s just too damn fine.

 

They used to tell me greatness wasn’t measured

By how few times you fell, but

By how well you got back up.

I say it’s measured by how much backup you got.

 

The one thing knowledge has taught me

Is that knowledge isn’t power,

Power is the ability to create knowledge.