Tag Archives: reform

Generation Gap

You call yourselves Creatives,
seekers of some brave new world
where the light of tomorrow shines
and everyone is free,
constructing some great paradigm
connecting one and all
across the universe and time
through some technology.

You call yourselves Inventors,
sculpting from the gossamer
of heretofore undreamt of dreams
and other precious stuff –
iconoclasts, revisioning
the way the world should be:
unleashed from simple here and now
across eternity.

You build as if your raw supplies
were part of nothing else:
a world of waste and sloth and darkness
waiting for your touch.
Pretending it some virgin spot
you dig with pre made tools,
imagining your destiny
replaces nothing much.

And those with whom you disagree?
It’s obvious they’re old,
and harbor shadows of the past,
their light hurtful and cold.
If their ideas made sense,
why did the world end up this way?
That they failed, is no fault of yours;
they did what they were told.

And those who straddle old and new,
those hopeless dinosaurs
whose shoulders you now stand upon
without a word of thanks?
You graciously allow them space
to try and tag along,
while you refuse suggestion
as you scurry to the bank.

Creative? Without toil and sweat,
your art is fantasy;
a game of smoke and mirrors
where you hide your snob’s distain
for those who came before you,
whose creations you transform
into the shiny, plastic things
you promise will again

invoke some metamorphosis,
turn all frogs into kings,
relieve your halitosis
and give back your bounce and spring,
improve your sense of wonder
for a reasonable cost,
and make you feel you’re where it’s at
pretending you’re not lost.

30 SEP 2014

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Let Those Who Would Reform

Let those who would reform the world desist
their feeble mewlings at the citadel
that those they choose to fight built to resist
more legions than the gods themselves could quell.

Let others beat to useless, bloody shreds
their fist-clenched hands against that firm defense,
with dreams of victory to fill their heads
in vain attempt to breach its competence.

What good is it to use the self-same tools
that those would enslave have honed so fine?
What use an end achieved, if the same rules
we claim our foes have bent, we break to climb?

Let those who would upset the status quo
seek first to change the sameness found within
that would by smoke and mirrors try to show
a better cause, or one more fair, should win.

Let others claw and scrape that would behold
outside themselves, a world less prone to pain,
where right always prevails, warm comes from cold,
and sunny days require no spells of rain.

What good are dreams that do not change the self,
that would with mere illusions seek to please,
their promise a slight shift in fleeting wealth
or kneeling pads to those still on their knees?

Let those who would reform the world begin
their revolution from a different spot:
instead of struggle to get what you want,
appreciate a bit of what you’ve got.

Let others take the parapets by storm,
their banners bright and bold against the flame;
For me, such revolutions don’t perform.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

12 APR 2005

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