old men with white beards
stand on podiums, pontificating,
pay attention, we can benefit from
their wealth of life-experience
and accumulated learning,
old white men with beards
lecture interminably, listen,
we are fortunate they deign
to gift us with their wisdom,
tell us how to think and behave,
old white men with white beards and
portly waistlines, poets, professors
curators and clerics, novelists,
critics, politicians and historians
pause for power-point punchline
punctuation and dramatic effect
as we hang on their every word,
these venerable old custodians of
whiskery white male cultural values
fixed ideas, intractable philosophies
and academic elitism
…everything we reject
and don’t need to learn,
listen, I’ll tell you
how to dance in sunshine
Andrew Darlington
.
Yes!
Comment by Mike McNamara on 1 September, 2019 at 11:07 amThanks Mike, your appreciation is appreciated…
Comment by Andrew Darlington on 11 September, 2019 at 7:15 pmGrand stuff, Andrew! Jesse
Comment by Jesse Glass on 14 October, 2021 at 1:25 amThanks very much for the positive responses, which are very much appreciated.
Comment by Andrew Darlington on 14 October, 2021 at 7:51 pmWith the acceleration of recent events, I get an increasing feeling of the precariousness of things. There’s a sense in which we ride a generational raft, surfing decades in a kind of collective togetherness, those we interact with directly, and those whose lives we brush against in brief virtual ways, we’re all a part of that same turbulent tsunami of time-space, we share the same trip through the same span of years, when one of us falls off that imaginary raft, we lose molecules of our own being too, and we feel pangs of loss, there are rocks ahead, the raft will founder, so we must cherish one another, each of us, every last one of us, and value this uniqueness while we can, for this pulse is a one-off…
Life Is Groovy -Andy-
Andy, yes with covid, climate change, wars, and incipient wars (one of which may be developing in my back yard with the China-Taiwan and other provocations), and wide-spread political insanity, I certainly understand the concern you express, and I do indeed value your friendship whatever the future might bring. Jesse
Comment by Jesse Glass on 15 October, 2021 at 3:24 am