Dreadful Bliss

Who is the author of my rebellion?
The source of my foolish follies?
Like a mega pastor on a jet,
I worship the same sinister god.
Mesmerized by status and station—
A seat perched atop the masses,
Supported by their basic survival,
Their quest for a better tomorrow,
And the dream that is promised:
A spot on higher, firmer ground
While the water relentlessly climbs.
As the wealthy sit in rooms of ladders,
Promising, in death, to finally give.

I grew up with the faults of Boomers,
As they lived for today instead of saved.
They marched in drug-fueled protests,
Only to see their leaders cash out.
As the far-out kids redirected course—
Jobs sent abroad in consumption's name,
Currency debased to print a better today,
Politicians stealing from babies unborn
To feed allies and fatten themselves.
No resource, just a survival of sorts
In a world that plays follow-the-leader
With eyes only for which others have.

Now we stand, a powerless debtor stock—
The children who swim in their glutton.
We choose each day not to see it growing,
Rather focus our gaze far and wide,
And fall for the perplexing sleight of hand,
Their silly little parlor trick well-designed
To get them through to their dying breath.
While we die from Red Dye Number Five,
With health care costs ever mounting,
Inflation bringing the wolf to the door—
Victims of the world’s greatest folly:
That the Love Generation truly cared
About a cause and society’s better day,
Where all could have free opportunity
To work, save, and make a mark.

The young are not without their fault.
We bought in, hook, line, and sinker—
To debating the righteousness of a party
While swiping our way after the Joneses.
In a land where an unwisely spent dollar
Was followed by a new one freshly minted
To keep up with our neighbor—steady,
Even if only in appearance.
A proverbial house of cards stacked high
On consumption and increasing vanity,
While the next generation drifts away
In luxury’s corridors, worthless trinkets
Littered with vanities’ purchased trophies.

As now I sit in a room full of ladders,
Looking down on an ever-rising tide—
Guilt consuming, for playing a hard game,
A focused and steady, relentless sacrifice
To play the game of my grandparents,
To forgo the childish in prudence’s name.
I know that I cannot save them all.
And would it matter even if I could?

I have seen COVID, where cash rained—
All got drenched in the mighty dollar,
Only to once again spend beyond,
Twice again, and then some more.
Travel to exotic locales, soon forgotten.
Purchases of stuff, soon discarded—
A momentary reward for an impulse.

Oh, what becomes of a society of Me,
Rather than a society of Greater We?
Forgoing the needs of Generation Next,
As they rot in front of glowing screens—
Until the day that the madness stops,
And the printer jettisons a final bill
To a society of today, racked in debt.

A final parting gift with hanging tag,
“With love, Grandma and Grandpa”—
As destruction, chaos, and death ensue,
Where no ladder stands quite tall enough
For the generation too blind to see,
From the generation too ambitious to care.

 

Nicholas Campos