Each generation’s majority makes choices that usher change
Lost pined for simple peace
Depression lived for human survival
Silence spoke for equality in a civil voice
Hippies fought war with flowers
Boomers drove for mad knowledge of self
Grunge nodded honesty from suburban garages
Y baptized Science as god
Mobs then anointed Orange Man as king
Down at the crossroads as means to their ends
For taxes, for borders, for babies, for guns, for Right
Trading truth, communal values and united dreams for their causes
How will we be remembered
As we watch this Heyday bloom
What will be this generation’s rallying cry
Will there be one
A culmination of past generation's trusted change
Lost, depressed, silent, free, self-aware, honest, doubting
Us
Here now
Strong
Watching the flames
Will we quietly turn away
As our world burns
Or will we tap a new strength
To face the fire
Together


© 2019 MJL

When I was young,
I learned how to write poetry.
When I was old,
I am a book

High School.

Where everyone believes getting drunk and high's cool.
Sleep the least and work the most.
Hide their beast, only talk to boast.
Laugh but conceal, smile but never feel.
Take what's painless over what's real.
Don't open up because they don't understand.
Grown ups only give you expectations and demands.
Ask for help on something else and its out of their hands.
And they wonder why student interest is reduced to strands.

Expect them to figure out the rest of their life.
If they don't, let their failure cut them like a knife.
Overloading with choices drowns out their voices.
The next generation is drained and in pain.
Education's so clerical its a miracle they're sane.
They assume with current events that kids won't be affected.
When really all the hate and pain and hurt just gets projected
On a fragile state of mind still finding their identity.
They see kids who are unique and think punishment's the remedy.

How do kids respond when we stomp on their soul?
Searching for an out when we bury hope in a hole?
Now they can't see, because they don't have their own place
To discover who they are, they can't feel their own face.
I can't embrace a place where kids can't be who they are.
A light that can't shine, a night with no stars.