The Youth of Today

The difference between young and youthful

Between highest heights and jumping off cliffs

Between reaching plateaus and never making progress

Between looptyloos and heavy handed hoops

Between spreading wings and spreading legs,

Spreading knowledge and breaking bread

Tonight I lay on the pillow my leaden head and

Tomorrow I close my eyes in a deadman standstill

Here I am standing still despite those who would have me slipping downhill

And in my hands an unlit cigarette awaiting a stricken match

To come into my arms spread wide enough to swallow Jonah whole

Wide enough to bridge a bottomless sinkhole

And sink my fingers into softest soil smelling of the peat in bogs

Across my sprawled body from foot to stomach to crown

Creep the fogs and fawns into sprawling lawns

A greenest expanse lit by a fiery star while all I can see is the reflection

In a stone with craters and dunes that casts a subtly subdued glow

That allows dead stars to shine for longer than I could ever be alive

Suddenly the burdens of this plane seem to shrink and sink

Swallowed up by the earth beneath.