creative: conventional wisdom

they tell you not to rock the boat,
to go with the flow,
to Let it Be.
they tell you to be different,
to swim against the stream,
to fight the machine.
they tell you to stop and smell the roses,
to wake up and smell the coffee,
to enjoy the simple things.
they tell you all's fair in love and war,
that it's better to have loved and lost
than to have never loved at all.
you can bet your bottom dollar
that conventional wisdom
is the sugar that helps the medicine go down.

written circa november, two-thousand nine