Monday, January 16, 2012

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

2 comments:

  1. Wow, the emotional pulls, loved it
    I enjoyed reading this poem alot. the entire feel and sweeping height of desire.
    -Michael

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  2. Thank you. I'm discovering that the strongest desire one can have is for one's life to have meaning. We let ourselves get distracted by sex and careers and at my age, it's time for the larger concerns.

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