Every Verse

Nothing you can complain there’s none of
You won’t find, if you squint hard, there’s some.
It’s not the none-of haunts you but the some.

Don’t like the singing in your lifetime?
Don’t like the bad habits of the young?
Complain about the good songs once sung,

The heroic young that used to work
To improve the world all around them,
How they were numerous, now all gone?

They’re out there now—the great composers
Of yet another conflicted age,
World-changing minds for a world changing,

Never lazier than any one
Generation was. They have their songs.
Their songs have everything you thought

Was lost or only in earlier
Precious, carefully preserved remains.
Sure, you want more, but there’s always some.