Men and Boys
The kiddie-giggling boy-men types,
Who shape our tastes and fuel our gripes,
Are like a zebra with no stripes.
Their views today are painted on;
Those of the past are long, long gone.
They rule the culture like machines,
And serve up, bite-sized, on our screens,
An option menu for our dreams.
The bad ones will be swept away;
Nice shall prevail day after day.
They pose in Paris and Berlin
And spread around their gurning grin,
But won’t take fortune on the chin;
They seek out somebody to blame
And turn to mud the victim’s name.
Stephen Gospage
Wed 8th Jan 2025 08:49
I am grateful for all the comments on this piece and my thanks to Uilleam, Graham, Flyntland, John, Telboy and Rolph for their contributions.
So many of the people who run or achieve prominence on social media platforms rely on shallowness and insincerity to try to get their message across. There's a veneer of fake niceness which can rapidly degenerate into threats and bullying if they don't get their way. As most of you suggest, this leads to cheapening of public discourse.
Apart from anything else, it's the billions of wasted hours -'flown straight into nothingness', as Larkin said.
Non-jobs, superficiality - it's all there in your perceptive comments.
Thanks again, and to everyone who liked this poem.