Good Cannot Be Itself

Popularity is failure.
Excellence is sameness.

If it can be measured
or voted for
or selected by committee
or deigned in any way
a designee of merit or 
mere productivity
it will be average
and resemble
in a faded way
all that we want to call great.

Values are mechanisms
for repetition
as aesthetics 
or ethics
or effervescence.

Neither randomness nor a plan
can drive a car 
as if it were the only vehicle
carrying the last person
to a final appointment.