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O, Youth of Today

Rev up your engines
  O, youth of today
The challenge before you
  Is to find a smooth way

To ease out the old
  and bring in the new
Without transforming the world
  to a dark witch's brew

You've seen what can happen
  when we cave in to emotion
The protests of Summer 2020
  dissolving into unbridled explosions

Where he who shouts loudest
  or longest claims victory
Wherein Seattle, Portland, Austin
  and Richmond are awfully sorry

Please equip yourselves well
  Mark the landscape of the age
Your hand steady on the wheel
  of Improvement - not rage

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Jennifer Proxenos

Date: 7/29/2020 9:59:00 AM

Such wonderful advise to the youth of today, but perhaps we were also a little hot headed when in our late teens. Read my Peanut butter strike poem which took place in my last year at school (as a prefect!)- although all was well by the day we left school. Hooliganism is not acceptable however, wherever it is displayed! Great poem my friend. Be safe, be blessed, Jennifer.

Gershon Wolf
Date: 8/2/2020 12:21:00 PM

I remember reading your Peanut Butter Strike poem, and, yes, there was a happy ending. In any event, let's turn the page on rage! :) gw

Caren Krutsinger

Date: 7/28/2020 4:32:00 AM

Let us disperse with the rage and find some commonality, let us return the world to peace and love. Let's be hippies. I am all for this poem!

Gershon Wolf
Date: 8/2/2020 12:20:00 PM

We've got to set the stage to dispense with the rage! Well-put, Caren. Thanks, Gershon

Edlynn Nau

Date: 7/27/2020 10:08:00 AM

Right! Rage is NOT the answer but peaceful protest is every citizens right! This Urban Warfare stirred by a private POTUS militia seems to invoke rage and not bring about solutions. Every 40 years it seems we have uprisings over the exact same issues! Let’s hope our youth not only pick up the baton but actually find answers in the way of policy and practice! Good write because it causes us to think about how we should proceed differently as well as describing a historic time.

Gershon Wolf
Date: 7/27/2020 5:33:00 PM

Appreciate your comments and insights... Rage just fans the blazes of division and dissension hotter and hotter -- and provoke equivalent actions from extremists on the other side. Doesn't work for me! Thanks for your support, Edlynn! Take care, Gershon