We’d Be Different

World of Messes, world of Botch.
Modern war was on their watch.
Too many cocktails, too much Scotch.
            We’d be different.

A corny joke, an old wives’ tale.
Off to work—lunch in a pail.
Sawing a board, driving a nail.
            We’d be different.

No smooth edges, no Degrees.
Easy to anger, hard to appease.
No taste for strangers, no mercy for trees.
            We’d be different.

Then actors We, much like a film set.
Schools of words writhed in a fishnet.
We told each other, each time that we met
            We’d be different.

Next flew some years, everyone stoned.
We laughed together as if we were cloned,
And yet, at times, still we intoned
            We’d be different

Last came the money, worshipped instead.
Getting and Getting was getting ahead.
Forgotten now was the time when we said
            We’d be different.

New ones rise, each with a screen.
Youth has ever that silver gleam.
Perhaps somehow unforeseen
            They’ll be different.

History loops to a steely bight.
Hobbes points out Appetite.
Perhaps by fortune, even if slight,
            They’ll be different.

Malthus’ smirk, Darwin’s glance.
Mark Twain tossing an old man’s lance.
Not their fault. Not much chance
            They’ll be different.



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