Perfectly Good

This is a poem which needs no explanation and is of no great importance – to be taken “as is”!

Perfectly Good

 

Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good

For what is achievable may not be best

Pity those who in the past have stood

For what may now seem a promise in jest

Let’s climb towards that highest rung

Of the logical ladder that never ends

Though praises may be slow to be sung

By the worst of enemies or best of friends

 

 

Can a thing not be good and perfect, you ask?

Of course, those who simplify might so say

While others who reflect upon the task

Will reply in a much more measured way:

There is a difference between the seeker of perfection

And the pragmatist who strives to improve

The former may achieve nothing but deception

But the latter will always forward move

 

 

So are these lines themselves a compromise

Or are they the best that could inform my choice?

The critic (who takes no risk) may surmise

That, on this matter, I have no right to a voice

But if we wish some new thoughts to express

At some time, we need to speak or write

And to do so without feeling that we might transgress

Some hidden code of what’s wrong or right

Perfection in art, perhaps, exists

But its pursuit is on what the artist subsists