The famous rock and roller sang,
You can’t always get what you want,
But do you really know what you want
Before you know what you can have?
A friend said, if you keep pointing fingers
You’ll eventually point at yourself.
Is he a savant, a philosopher disguised
As an ordinary man, a man whose
Ordinary mind turns up a nugget
Of truth, or is he a fraud, exciting
The gullible with pronouncements
So silken they’re sure to have once
Been sow’s ears.
You can get what you want
If you want nothing, or only a little.
A practical policy, though unpatriotic.
Didn’t somebody say, I want it all.
Is that person to be admired? Or pitied?
We’re cajoled into buying things we
Never imagined wanting, things we
Don’t need, things that will make our
Lives more difficult, although we won’t know it.
There’s the rub. What we want is knowledge,
The knowing that pricelessness is a concept
Of ridicule in the circles that may come near,
But will never open to let us step inside
And see everything we’ve always imagined
We wanted, everything that will allow us
To eagerly peer at reflections of ourselves,
To smile and say, And this is all.
© Dennis Hathaway
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