Dan Campion
Survival of the fittest concepts does
not make them true. They only rule until
their betters come to mind, and then: It was
a fine affair. Now, who’ll pick up the bill?
To get out of the payment takes some skill,
impossible to teach. You must be born
with it, an argument for nature. Still,
there’s hope for souls who’d rather not be shorn
but must rely on nurture: Laugh to scorn
the very notion of a debt. All thought
is free, all testimony else, forsworn,
corrupted, forced under duress, or bought.
Ideas spring from nowhere, don’t you see,
no principal, no interest, and no fee.
Dan Campion is the author of Peter De Vries and Surrealism and co-editor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song, a third edition of which was issued in 2019. Dan’s poetry has appeared in Grand Little Things, Light, Measure, Poetry