When I'm 80

When I’m 80

I think it’s naive to believe

that only the good die young, 

it’s just that if you go 

before you turn 20,

that the song 

you could have sung

is louder in our ears

than the tears

that you caused 

and we forget that 

you didn’t go to Church,

you left the toilet seat up,

and that time you told your mother,

“SHUT UP!”

What’s philosophy 

without uncertainty,

a planted seed

from the Nike corporate machine:

JUST DO IT!

But most of us don’t do anything

and when

a kid comes along

humming a new song

its tone 

hurts our ears

because of our

recent failed memories;

and why don’t I like 

any contemporary poetry?

It’s the same thing 

taken from the NIV,

"Truly I tell you," 

he continues, 

"no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

“Oh how pretentious!”

“I know, I know.”

But,

what hasn’t been told

was that Charles Bukowski 

wrote of trips to the horse track 

and back,

a room,

a typewriter,

and a point of view 

of personal change.

It takes courage 

to see the whole world

heading in one direction

and run the other way,

you could call it:

insane,

tormented, 

or just dumb;

but I’d rather be

one of the three 

than your version

of comfortably numb.

Bear with me,

because most of a Manifesto

isn’t about you

it’s about the auteur of the movie,

personal influence and artistic control 

over a script so fitting 

that the film is made 

in the image of life

and the author of it;

like most of my mornings

on a balcony 

with coffee

or last night when I fell asleep 

with a half glass of whiskey 

beside me,

I didn’t need to finish it 

to know it was there,

but it’s comforting 

to remember the taste of old memories 

and that’s the spark it takes

to see the future before us.

So what’s it take to lead,

not me

but this is about your eyes

and the yearning for opportunity, 

one of us 

has to tell the truth 

so that we both 

can see better versions 

of the same thing.

When I’m 80 

I’m going to be me,

which version of them 

are you gonna be?