And all that you have learned is but empty noise to them

The world that your father knew disappeared so long ago

Why, the world that you grew up in is now their ancient history

Things you found important are just no longer relevant

Movements that you’ve never heard of create the news today

The future you always awaited now bobs in your fading wake

Glancing into your eyes, all they see is some boring past

Your endless possibilities have quite slowly merged

Today it’s you just sitting quietly, watching their kids now

The latest calls to action are not intended for your ears

Your once unlimited time now reveals a distinct horizon

Presently it hurts just getting up, even after sleeping well

And all that you have learned is but empty noise to them

Your treasured possessions are not even fit to be donations

They’ve never heard of historic events that you witnessed on TV

The work you toiled so long upon is no longer done

Their kids don’t understand any of the stories from your youth

The ideas that molded you are no longer circulating

Your youthful ideals were scuttled quite long ago

Your search for meaning was halted due to falling darkness

Your HappyEverAfter was postponed until further notice

You are the ones now, who are older than dirt

The world as you explain it now turns only in your mind

Your acquired wisdom just makes them smile to each other

Your once cutting edge is now quaint and outdated

Your volunteer labor is not even worth the minimum wage

Now it’s you who they’re making fun of in edgy hipster skits

But you’re keeping real busy just looking for your glasses

And nice people often call you about things that you should buy

They ask who it could be when they see you in those old pictures

Now it’s you waving goodbye as they drive away

You’ve put down your load and become an awkward burden

You’re ready to enjoy life but you’re worn-out, confused and broke

But, Hey: You even try to walk a little, almost every day

It’s they who remember you’re telling that same story once again

And the sun really is too bright for your golden years

First in line, you’re next to go and you’ve already been cast off

I never knew I’d be laying here so still

I never knew they were making stuff up to get me mad enough to keep voting for their rich sponsors

I never found it worth my time to exercise, eat right, read, save, learn new job skills or ha! Meditate

I never felt even the slightest need to do more with less or to reuse, refurbish, repurpose or recycle

I hadn’t a clue that my precious faith was actually just another crippling and addictive escapist scam

I never realized I should have really believed in, and maybe even stood up for…something, anything…

I never saw end of life stuff coming so I was totally unprepared when it all-sudden smacked me down

I never knew what hit me so when I woke up I kept asking the same questions over and over again

I never grasped how much I had bet until after I had lost way more than I could ever have afforded

I never really felt their pain though I stood right nexta them thru all kinda their stirrin ceremonies

I never thought of self-acceptance until she told me that she could not love me cause I hated myself

I finally understood that none of us ever has any chance at all and that has made quite a difference

I never knew I had already been taking part in this rigged game, until it was very nearly over for me

I had no idea how short life actually was and especially how quickly it would just deadend on me

I never had a clue how fast time’s current moved us since we were all being carried along together

I never dreamed I’d be considered senile after my blurry life left me in this simplified confusion

I would never have guessed that all I had striven to learn would become either outdated or irrelevant

I never thought I’d be deemed unemployable with 25 years to live and way more debt than savings

I’m sure I couldn’t have known my house wasn’t a personal ATM that would be eternally replenished

I was blissfully unaware that forever and for always was an advertising fairytale spun by slick media

I did not foresee us living with our parents and our grandkids from different marriages for this long

I had absolutely no intention of supporting misogynistic terrorists and inbred sheiks at our gas pumps

I never questioned our living large on negative savings rates via credit cards, rented TVs and liarloans

I never considered for one minute that our HappilyEverAfter wasn’t just up around that next bend

I never saw how patriotic megacorp CEOs were immune from caring what happens to the rest of us

I never even noticed as responsibilities crept up slowly, flowing in all around me, right up to my neck

I was not at all aware I was merely a data point, totally unimportant outside frivolous market trends

I never listened to that tiny voice asking the big questions - for actually, I feared those answers

I took no lessons as my elders disappeared - since I always knew that would never happen to me

I never paid any attention to the losers who quietly kept the wheels on for us all, each and every day

I never felt we could be lost since we all shuffled along so close together, all in the same direction

I never saved cause I always knew to stop and smell the roses, grab for the gusto and live for today

I never had the slightest doubt my precious children being entitled to a better future than my own

I never considered that the issues they trumpeted were only to serve their sponsor’s selfish interests

I never realized I couldn’t remember hardly any of those big holidays I spent so much time waiting on

I never knew I’d be laying here so still and tubed up but with so much yet to do I had not even begun

I found no comfort in knowing that they had to let me go and then they had to get on with their lives

The Geriatric Question, Final Solutions

    “Nature is cruel; Therefore we are also entitled to be cruel” - Adolf Hitler

At 50 all our workers become eligible for permanent external transfers and lose all promised benefits

It shall be established in court and buttressed by statute that age-related prejudice cannot be proven

Corporate bankruptcies can routinely renege on all pledges made to retirees – with no legal backlash

There is to be no shame associated with selling parents into poverty so that they can get on Medicaid

It will not be viewed as prejudicial to vilify the old for their disproportionate share of medical costs

Politicians ignore the aged at their own peril - until they’re sure they can win without their votes

It is a winning policy to gut social security funding in the guise of a payroll tax cut to win an election

Unlike the fats, blacks and gays, comedians may ridicule seniors in any way and context they see fit

We’ll just ignore all the crime which odiously targets the aged with slick and honest-sounding frauds

One tacit Traditional Family Value™ is that our frayed elders are as irrelevant as that old 20^th century

Nobody needs ever ask how forced retirees will survive for 35 years without any savings or benefits

All shall silently agree that those no longer allowed to contribute labor have earned a duty to die

Seniors must wear easily-identifiable, ill-fitting, out of style clothes at all venues, public and private

The aged may be herded into expensive, gated communities which even they wont label as ghettos

Stubborn old fools who refuse to conform may dine alone on pet food while they freeze in darkness

The pre-funeral health industry is hereby granted access to smilingly drain the savings of our elders

Citizens may politely ignore their limping, half-blind, zombie-like demonstrations for social equality

Their faulty memories are not to be confused with the stressed data overload of our own blurry lives

Briefly mumbling at their expensive IC bedsides shall be deemed good enough to see them off forever

It is proper to drain their time and money as volunteers once they’ve been excreted from their jobs

Oldsters must self-identify by driving too slowly in tiredly-clean cars with right-wing bumper stickers

They shall be gathered together and fed donated food while listening to old music thru hearing aids

They must accept that costly, boring cruise ship tours really are the dream vacations of their lives

Over 60s will be prescribed different, brandname drugs by each doctor without regard to interactions

To cap their abusive medical expenses, the old must forever pay all the never-ending cost increases

After lifetimes funding parent’s social security, their own benefits must go for schooling illegales kids

They shall be convinced that daily slow limping and eating sawdust will yield them long and rich lives

Their non-profit interest groups may sell them out behind closed doors and then lie to them about it

The elderly have no need to understand criminally overly-complex retirement financial milking scams

The government may decimate senior savings by artificially holding interest rates below inflation

TV may smilingly patronize the old, showing them performing formerly simple tasks, Almost normally

Doctors are encouraged to get rich being surrogate friends and family to lonely and decaying retirees

There shall be no guilt associated with warehousing parents grown too burdensome for our busy lives

Geriatrics will be weaned off the entitlement mentality via forced feedings of Personal Responsibility

Seniors must lose their false entitlement regarding benes they were always told that they had earned

Doctors and relatives may discuss a flagging elder in the third person, as if they were not even there