The Moving Finger Moves On, Flipping Us Off

we’re not what we thought we would be

are we, kiddo?

i’ll bet a lot of people thought

we’d end up here.

alone and childless, living on the web,

family far,

wonderful friends but too busy

to be around.

this is the life we have in age

time to see it,

i never got into battle.

you ran away.

maybe since I’m older and lame

it’s easy now

to learn to live simply retired

and stop fighting

could have done it differently

but it’s too late

and there’s no point in worrying

about the past

the moving finger having writ

moves on blindly

what’s done is done and set in stone

our history

so i do bad poems and plays

and try to laugh

and sing in church in the wrong key

try to protest

there will be no love to rescue

either of us

unless we stop daydreaming the plot

and take what comes

alas i’m in a better place

not addicted

to yesterday’s wild adventures

with teenaged boys

i want to be mature enough

for good old men

who’ve loved and lost and lived to tell

me their story

maybe help to push the country

back to goodness

and help the next lost generation

to have a life

better than ours