I wrote the following poem while waiting to meet a friend of mine who had tickets for Joan Baez’s Dallas concert Feb.24. This is an “extended play” of an earlier version.
Halfway sellout
Real liberals of another era
Trying to recapture
Cash-on-demand nostalgia
For the price of admission.
I don’t sign every petition
And I don’t avoid Wal-Mart every day of the year.
But, if I asked you,
Mr. ’60s – and Mr. ’90s corner office – were good to me,
What all is in your IRA?
Or your company’s 401,
Or if you ever tried to get it to divest
Some of the stocks you suspect it might have,
What would you say?
I don’t have a corner office.
Or a 401(k).
Or an IRA.
But, as much as possible,
I still own my own brand.
Old man, take a look at my life,
You could be like I am.
When did you trade your life identity
For your job identity?
You and your fellow yuppies,
The not-yet-digested piglet
Stuck in the gullet of the American python.
Oh, yes, you played with greed
After you quit playing with grass,
And greed swallowed you,
Far more than the grass ever did.
No, old man, on second thought,
DON’T take a look at my life.
Indirectly, you’re already screwing it up enough,
Trying to turn the Me Generation
Into the Me Millennium.
Old man, get away from me.
I don’t want to be like you are.
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