Friday, August 21, 2020

Passing the Acid Test ~ Friday, August 21, 2020

All we could ever want, / good jobs to pay the bills, / a roof above our heads, //

little something to fill / our vast empty stomachs, / hungry from dawn to dusk, //

little did we know then, / the world was ours to change / in any way we liked, //

want never to pay rent, / abolish the practice, / reinvent the reasons, //

even if we wanted / to change the government, / we didn't know...it's ours, //

create label buttons / with our favorite slogans, / question authority, //

only we would become / authority figures / ourselves, fat and greedy, //

undernourished children / in Africa need food, / play a concert series, //

little did we know then, / we paid to make the world / a better place for all, //

despite knowing nothing, / our opinions mattered / all the more so to us, //

everyday we consumed / the industries we built / with our hard-earned income, //

virtually nothing / leftover after rent, / so we bought books to read, //

even if we held on / to the reins of business, / could we drive the horses, //

rest until noon, work late, / get drunk after long days / of mindlessly waiting, //

when opportunity / came knocking at our door, / too stoned, we laughed it off, //

and forgot about it, / until we became old, / and slaves to industry, //

no one climbed Everest, / not even skied the Alps, / we did nothing worthwhile, //

to rebel against those / in power, authority, / was all we knew to do, //

good God, nobody cares, / old folks bitching since time / immemorial, lost //

out to the almighty / dollar bill to buy stuff / ten years from now is trash, //

only if we had known / we had sold ourselves short, / nothing better to do, //

difficulties later / in life, like no savings / and no retirement fund, //

just played into their hands, / to show we were helpless / as children without hope, //

on TV, commercials / for elderly Russian / Holocaust survivors, //

buy into helplessness, / hopelessness, charity, / we become those people, //

still, we send hard-earned cash / to help their hopelessness, / they will never live large, //

the almighty buck drives / the chariots of fire / across the skies to dusk, //

only somebody else / holds the reins, never us, / we gave up our future, // 

pay to play, the only / way to win the game, get / in their my son, get some, //

as my father beckoned / me from beyond the grave, / eat well, don't die like me, //

yet, we mimic actions, / like apes in the jungle, / primates we are as well, //

transparency becomes / the big new thing, tell us / how we're getting fucked up, //

how we've been fucked over, / too late now to go back, / mesothelioma, //

everyone suffers life, / it's inherent, our wealth / comes from our own sorrow, //

blind as youth to the wheels / crushing the bones of love, / squeezing from every drop, //

ignorance until truth / smacked us upside the head, / a friend dies, we wake up, //

little did we know then, / the world was ours to change / anyway we wanted, //

little did we know that / we just had to tell them / what it was we wanted, //

still, time took more friends' lives, / our bodies became stiff, / inflexible, codgers, //

as we learned to grow old / gracefully with yoga / and other practices, //

relying on others / to help us meet our goals, / to make us feel worthwhile, //

only we helped to build / the economy twice / during each recession, //

only we called others / the greatest, better than / our own, generation, //

for real, were we really / all that bad, did we not / try to better the world, //

alright, some of us were / criminals and felons, / hitmen and mob bosses, //

but even they are good / down deep, just as we are / morally-flawed beings, //

our knowing right from wrong / didn't stop us hurting / others as we saw fit, //

very much so, we knew / it was wrong to cause harm, / who really understood, //

everyone watched in vain, / as planes hit the towers, / we're THAT generation, //

only if we had known / how our government made / all of it possible, //

understood the covert / operations around / the world, even at home, //

remember how we tripped / on acid in high school, / thanks to the CIA, //

how we chose LSD, / Project MKUltra, / influenced by the Beats, //

even we knew better, / but found our temptation / too strong to look forward, //

acid affected us, / hallucinogens won / the war on cheap dosing, //

despite being fucked up, / we all went to college, / got an education, //

still, what more could we want, / free tuition for life, / abolish student loans... //

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