arrogance of youth

look away
look away
when confronted with someone old &
pick the age at which someone becomes
unworthy of the same
cultural pulse
in which you find yourself beating,
for here in america,
the old are thrown to the side &
left to fend for themselves
without an adequate safety net &
without an adequate amount of
respect---
what can be found is a vast menagerie of
airbrushed imagery
plaguing the covers of every magazine &
filling all the children avec
wide eyes focused on the
net,
with the sense that what matters is money
because money can make you beautiful &
if you are beautiful you will be loved &
if you are loved, you’ll age slowly &
if you age slowly, you will never become that
"wrinkled, ugly, useless thing"
which the idolized american culture deems
irrelevant---
how funny it is to think that for such a short time,
the bumbling chutzpah of youth
can overcome even the tiniest of flaws &
yet when the youth begins to flush down the
toilet,
the flaws are still there
glaring one in the face,
with nothing but time to make them stronger &
more pungent to the smell & feeling,
like the more powerful of snobby cheeses---
yes,
young america,
you will age & die
just like the rest of us &
old america,
you are going to get there quicker,
whether you like it or not---
seems that beginning to look all ages in the eye &
remembering just how irrelevant we all are,
how much evolution has no need for the lot of us &
how quickly our lives will all cease,
might bring a bit more kindness into the world &
start a reevaluation of what priorities need to be in our
heads.