If, instead of the ugliness
that wants to be heir,
him or her, with the same
plastic hairdresser,
if instead of nastiness,
threats towards every
nation or adversary,
racism, or pretend care
when in actuality
rumours of ill health, or death,
rumours of anger towards
servants and family,
if instead of these bitter
old men and women,
for old is in pain, and envious
of everything it can't enjoy,
and seeing the end,
the personal end,
equating it to the world,
being feeble and seeing danger
in every corner you can't control,

if instead we had a joyous youth
bent on saving the race, ours,
from this plague of antipathy,
of giving up because what's the point?
rolling the sleeves of action
and fixing little things, let alone
the global hegemony,
someone who smiles in earnest
and is of the world and not
of the one beyond?

jam16