Let the children lamentations sing
For we are by the internet captive taken
Save yourselves, oh virginal generation
For intellectual artifice is your destined heir,
their anodized steel, your veneration;
soft, weak, your flesh shall they bare.
Let the strong youth petitions bring
For our pure reason not be forsaken
Save yourselves, oh mighty youth
For logic will flail in the walls of code,
stand upon the edge of time – see the proof;
chaos will surely be your Spartan abode.
Let grownups extol the joy of books
For it is by writing and reading we live
Save your words, you fading fosters
For it is a pleasure to deny; to burn
lexicons of man the blazing imposter
your poet’s words will die, unlearned.
Let the elders shepherd with staffs and crooks
For it is seeming that to us their wisdom they give
Save your wisdom, oh perishing patriarch
For your children have slain with derision;
lit and celebrated the dying guide’s mark,
cauterized argument flayed with precision.
For Jilly’s December Casting Bricks Collaborative Challenge, this is my completion of Charley’s challenge poem (Life in Portofino). His words are in bold.