Austin Belanger writes

The "Golden" Years

It's not really a Dream,

More like a nightmare.

You're born into it.

Fight just to be square.

Educated to accept.

Be an individual,

But keep in step.

The work is continual.

Work hard, follow the rules.

Save your money.

The mantra of fools.

Time isn't money,

Except in this lie.

You work for your penny,

You toil 'til you die.

And if by some chance

You live to be old,

Your health now failing,

Your goods will be sold

To give back your savings

To those who own all.

In a gilded cage,

Summer becomes fall.

And in your rage,

From this realization,

You were duped to perform

In the name of a Nation,

But reality boils down

To ignorance and dross,

Too late to change,

The working man's loss.

Golden years aren't gold,

They're gilded and fake.

The rich have always been on the take.

So live your life now,

Because later is fickle.

We never know,

When we'll meet the sickle.

[I just slapped this one down in one 15 minute sitting.  Just heard my buddy went into ICU and watching all of my friends work their lives away to die broke and broken....it just came out…. I feel like this one is a sister poem to my other poem Hindsight.  I read it in the same angry measure.  Almost a "rap," as strange as that may sound coming from an old white guy.]

A landscape with the Grim Reaper -- Filippo Napoletano