The grey hairs in my amateur beard
Have finally outnumbered the black
It looks a complete mess
Not one thing or the
Other (I will shave it off tonight)
But thank god for these aches and pains
And lack of remaining melanin
Thank the deviant pagan gods
For 48 hour hangovers
For stigmatism and a delicate stomach
Because I look around me now
At the young people
Of which I am no longer one
And this I only recently acknowledged with any grace
They are turned on not
In the traditional sense
Tuned in not
In the classical manner
And my god do they all lack character
What has happened to our last hope
When they all know
Exactly what line to follow
What job to get
How to get it
Exactly their direction home
What to wear how to eat
Who not to fuck
Adorned in the correct clothes
As though they fell out of their mothers like that
Blinkers on to any dangerous asides
Jesus
How do you ever reach functioning adulthood
Without first joyfully running the gauntlet
Of a semi-professional degenerate?