When You Cannot Distinguish

When You Cannot Distinguish

When you cannot distinguish

Between a right and wrong

It’s not your French or English

(Nor any spoken tongue)

Which has to be the matter—

It isn’t what you know

Nor has to do with chatter—

But happens to be so

Much deeper than a grammar

Because it isn’t that

(Although you have a stammer

It isn’t about chat)

A person might be clever

But clever as he’d be

Distinguishing’s endeavor

Involves morality:

You have to have a conscience

And harken to the fact

That there’s no art or science

To tell you how to act;

Why, even Aristotle,

Despite his intellect

When he would hit the bottle

Became a derelict

Then, caught in a position

That compromising was

The great metaphysician

Did what a doofus does:

He claimed he didn’t do it

(Not Aristotle then)

But all the same he knew it

And would do it once again.