A Plan

YOUTH is the season of revolt; at twenty-five

We curse the reigning politicians,

Wondering that any man alive

Stands for such damnable conditions.

Whatever is, to us, is wrong,

In economics, life, religion, art;

The crowned old laureates of song

Are pikers, and accepted sages

Appear devoid of intellect and heart;

Continually, the ego in us rages;

Our sense of universal, rank injustice

Swells till it's like to bust us;

We love to see ourselves as outcast goats

Browsing at basement tobbledotes,

The while we forge the mordant bolt

That is to give society its jolt;

And any man who wears two eyes upon his face

Contentedly and unashamed,

And glories in the pose

And makes a virtue of his having just one nose,

We curse as dull, conventional, and tamed

And commonplace.

Thirty finds us a trigle sobered, with a doubt

Whether we'll turn the cosmos inside-out,

Reform the earth, regild the moon

And make the Pleiads sing a modern tune;

Some of the classics are not bores, we think,

And barbers have their uses;

We grow more choice in what we eat and drink,

Less angry at abuses;

We work a little harder, want more pay,

Grab on to better jobs,

And learn to make excuses

For certain individuals erstwhile condemned as snobs;

We do not worry nine hours every day

because the world in its traditional, crool way            [sic]

Continues to roll calmly on and crush

The worthier myriads into bloody mush;

And yet, at thirty, on the whole,

If analyzed we still would show a trace of soul.

At forty--well, you know:

Chins, bank accounts, and stomachs start to grow;

The world's still wrong in spite of all we've tried

To do for it, and we're no longer broken hearted--

We sit on it and ride,

We're willing, now, to let the darned thing slide

Along in just about the way it stated.

Of course, we're anxious for reforms,

And all that sort of stuff,

Unless they cause too many economic storms--

But really, on the whole it's well enough:

We hold by standards, rules and norms.

But when I'm eighty I intend

To turn a fool again for twenty years or so;

Go back to being twenty-five,

Drop cautions and conventions, join some little group

Fantastically rebel and alive,

And resolute, from soup

To nuts; I'll reimburse myself

For all the freak stuff that I've had to keep upon the shelf;

Indulge my crochets, be the friend of man,

And pull the thoughts I've always had to can--

I'm looking forward to a rough, rebellous, unrespectable old age,

Kicking the world uphill

With laughter shrill

And squeals of high-pitched, throaty rage.

Don Marquis