Shall I repeat again tonight the songs
you heard last night and many nights before,
and soulless, mouth the words you sing along,
pretending love for money, like a whore?
Are these the only tunes worth your applause,
a tired set of worn nostalgic charts
you need pay no attention to, because
the words you have all memorized by heart?
Who needs a band to churn out these stale rhythms?
What point the years of study, toil and sweat
to learn an art that fades into a living,
a dream that drowns in years of sad regret?
It’s not as if your ears have ceased to listen;
more likely that you’ve truly ceased to care
if what you get for free is often missing
what makes it worth the time spent getting there.
And what good are your minds, if not for learning
what lies beyond the same old box you know?
When the old wood is gone that you’re now burning,
there will be no more forest, lest you grow.
Shall I repeat again the same old chorus,
because it makes you think the world unchanged
from when your life was once young and euphoric,
instead of grown decrepid and deranged?
There is no spark of life in your nostalgia.
It wastes new minutes pining for the old;
destroying youth’s creations, hope and beauty,
and building for them tombs of solid gold.
20 DEC 2007
