Editor’s Note: We share another thought-provoking poem by our Poet Laurete, Ian Mcleod. Seriously, if you have not yet purchased his books on poetry, or his novels, you are missing out. These are the works that will be studied in the future. You get to enjoy them now.

Society

poetry

inspired by ayn rand

and pop music

of the 1990s:

a dismally awesome

decade where the world

was only going to get better

and more prosperous.

life is remembering and forgetting.

yet i forget the good and remember

everything that went.

so horribly wrong.

it’s over a decade hence

and the gangrene has reached

the marrow.

i laugh at the protesters,

because they’re asking for

the very things that got us here.

A real rebellion against the

prior generation–like

the baby-boomers did

against theirs–

would go the opposite

direction of this nonsense.

we must not burden

a thing so fragile as

Society

with all its delicate details

and hyperemotionalism

with the heavy weight

of individual responsibility.

societies come and go–

the individual remains.