The School of Schadenfreude

One of the most pernicious parts of life

Is the tendency of other humans

To derive shameful joy from pain and strife

And laugh as others wear down to ruins

This response might strike one as peculiar

Save for the fact that at bottom, we’re beasts

Such that the rules with which we are familiar

Imply that when one starves, another feasts

Indeed, if ruthless competition reigns

Then when another loses, I might gain

But this sordid calculation mars brains

It reads life as a tale ugly and vain

If I and thou are interchangeable

Crude harm joy must be reprehensible