It’s Our Fault
If the world was better in your youth,
and kids had much more sense;
if things once great have gone to shit,
and nothing makes much sense,
you only have yourself to blame:
your parenting did this.
How damned convenient it must be,
what ignorance and bliss,
to vainly praise your parents’ ways
and how well you turned out.
Explain to me the reason why,
because I have some doubt,
why nothing that you learned so well
you passed on to your kids,
and how, despite your efforts,
our whole future’s on the skids.
2 APR 2014
08.18.05
Addled Essence
“The problem,” he said, “with making life so easy, particularly for the young adult, is two-fold. First, a life of leisure without significant responsibility or strife is bound to result in an attitude of mere idolent malaise — which of course is far from intense enough to serve as the impetus for any angst-ridden revolution or major shift in philosophy.”
“Secondly, the parents of such youngsters, who must deal with the nebulously undefined childish and ultimately selfish agendas resulting from their offspring’s lack of needful action, are likewise never taxed, insofar as their abilities to deal with REAL paradigm shifts are concerned. As a result, they become weak and flimsy shadows of their potential selves, and are woefully unequipped to counter the nefarious attacks of those unscrupulous individuals (and their attendant organizations, religions, governments and so on) who would shape the moral fiber of their children so that future generations will not even be aware, let alone care, that the world does not belong to them, or that they have been forced to in effect pay rent on their own bodies to afford the luxury of being alive with absolutely no free will whatsoever.”
“What was once adolescence,” he continued, “I therefore think would be better off termed ‘addled essence.’ It is at this critical stage that those in power first successfully attempt to convince people that they are in fact powerless, hopeless and witless — by offering them courses in empowerment, positive thinking and entertainment.”
“They are like the young elephant, who when relatively weak and small is attached, via a lightweight chain and metal hoop around their leg, to a stake in the ground. At that young age, no matter how they try, they cannot free themselves. After a time, they give up trying. As a result, even when they are fully grown and could easily pull out the stake and/or break the chain simply by lifting their enormous foot a matter of inches, they can be controlled, and do not attempt to escape, when tethered in this fashion.”
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A Witch’s Daughter
I watch my daughter grow. She finds the patriarchy’s walls,
once comforting and so secure, now quickly closing in;
and the consumer culture, bred in bright and shiny malls,
begins to question her reluctance to wallow in sin.
The icons, once so well preserved, expose their peeling paint,
and what chivalry she sought and took for granted
has now begun its slow campaign to try her as a saint;
rock solid faith by doubt has been supplanted.
She still retains naivete: that goodness will be found
behind even a callous smile, despite a hurtful word;
and yet behind her youth’s bravado, a glimpse of profound
and growing disillusion a keen eye may now observe.
So soon she plans to leave this place of shelter,
not knowing much, if anything, about the world outside.
Like Icarus, despite a father’s warning it will melt her
wings, she thinks it bravery, instead of suicide.
How much the world remains a swirl of danger,
her magazines don’t dare to publicize.
Instead, they speak inanities and fashion,
and only growing old they criticize.
My daughter. What this world of men empowered
will teach her, if she has the strength to learn,
is sadly, you are valued ’til deflowered,
and then, if you’re not careful, you get burned.
But still, to claim your self is worth the struggle;
to know, to dare, and keep a silent tongue.
It must be so, for in this world of Muggles,
what secrets are worth keeping, keep you young.
14 FEB 2005
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Parenting 101
Parenting teaches, like nothing else did
that you pay for the bullshit you pull as a kid
the invoices rendered by children who ask
for clemency, extended curfews, and cash
Before Attending Miss Teen Louisiana Training
We do not want to go and sit
for three long hours of this shit.
We do not think it well-spent time
to learn to walk the judging line
or show your beauty, just skin deep
to leeches, dilettantes and creeps.
Revealing if our wallets reach
quite deep enough, that’s what they teach.
But we will drive, in monkey suits
and gag ourselves on their false fruits,
suppress our thoughts, lest they betray
the fact that we despise the way
these things are run, and come about,
attempting to smooth out the doubt
that if you have good looks and poise
(at least as deemed by vapid boys)
you don’t need brains, or self, or sense
just ego and experience.
Alas, the time is drawing near –
hair washed, clothes pressed, complexion clear.
So off to some great hotel, we
advance to meet sad destiny.
In my back pocket rests a check
which writ, will debit self-respect
and add more funding to the cause
of empty, self-indulged applause.
There is no up-side to this thing.
There are no praises I would sing
to lift up pageants as some good.
I’d pull the plug, if I but could.
08 AUG 2004
06.3.04
Tradition and the Individual Talent
for T.S. Eliot
When Icarus took flight with home-made wings
he sought to rise above, not divine laws,
but listening to how the eagle sings
attempted to reach past the aeropause
that culture places on its young when born
to limit how far flung their dreams may reach,
and teaches children to avoid its scorn
by tempering their thoughts in civil speech.
Poor Daedelus, tradition’s solid stock,
can only watch in anguish from the bluff
as his bright future plummets to the rocks,
its bindings frayed, momentum not enough.
Against the ceiling set by common whim
there is no soar or dive; just fall, or skim.
03 JUN 2004
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Our Children’s Lives: a villanelle
Adventure here finds peril where great mystery still thrives;
it won’t respond to reason or attempts to understand
the me-o-centric universe that is our children’s lives.
A place where having grown ourselves, we’ve proved we can survive,
although what proof we have is often just in theory; and
adventure here finds peril where great mystery still thrives.
A mad morass of clique and class, peer pressure and sex drive,
that we have with experience found the strength to withstand:
the me-o-centric universe that is our children’s lives.
They simply want more everything, and each day are deprived;
and nothing is deemed good enough or goes the way it’s planned.
Adventure here finds peril where great mystery still thrives.
The constant webs they weave, and the perspectives they contrive
are foreign now, though once we were their age, and knew firsthand
the me-o-centric universe that is our children’s lives.
Successful navigation of this world is one in five;
and those who last intact are held in awe and great demand.
Adventure here finds peril where great mystery still thrives:
the me-o-centric universe that is our children’s lives.
15 APR 2004
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