Words of My Generation; Generation Why

Words of My Generation; Generation Why is a prose poem by me, Ooana Trien.

Inspired by the xennial generation; (a short and small generation squeezed between genX and millennials) and spontaneously written in 2016, I recorded to video for first time in the late spring of 2020 during the COVID lockdown in NYC.

Although it wasn’t the plan, I decided to upload it and after that other poems and recitations (I am known to take requests. If there is a poem you’d like me to look at the possibility of recording, ask away!)

Charles Bukowski and Jim Morrison were inspirations; in particular the poems “Genius of the Crowd” and “Feast of Friends.”

You can read more of my work at www.ooanabe.com

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ψ

Those who claim we are destroying the earth
Once claimed there were people destroying their God.

Those who claim all religions are the source of ills
Once claimed that all godless were the source of illness.

Beware the benevolent trends. They destroy the forrest before the medicines even get a chance to first grow.

Beware those who claim why the creations have become less bountiful – beware those who call you thief – that the gate was opened like a mugging – and the green stollen – denied now to you forever for the crime.

Beware of the word missused, reused or recycled. Beware of those who deny meaning or language to invoke change. They drain the waters as they always have. Beware any who claim ownership of language.

Beware those who say beware.

Be aware of words used, the poetry of linguistics not the logic of the false critics and mystics.

Mind the gaps between age, ages and so called sages.

Not all explorers are courageous or wise. Experience is often wasted on the inexperienced.

Be bold enough to welcome the return of authority.

Beware the blamers for they are the victims of another age’s false benevolence. Give them soulful pity. But no mercy.

Assume that not only the survivors survive. Beware the anointed victims.

Beware the revelations induced, not introduced and received in the slow dose of ordinary perception.

No one knows the mind, mindful or empathic – unless they know their own. Pay them no mind until you’ve learned your own.

No one can walk in anyone else’s shoes until they’ve walked in their own. Beware those who elevate empathy above kindness.

Beware those that often say “silence always is golden” or “it speaks more than words can say” or “talk is best done slow;” or “better left unsaid” for they never knew the unleavened word. They were the keepers of the grandest inquisitor’s tools too horrific to word – left to the world of the wordless.

Beware those that choose by committee.

Beware the children of Democracy.

Beware those left to create with only excuses made for creation and call that art.

Beware the times that elevate restraint and encourage solitary boxes. Joy shouldn’t be contained or feigned with false friends. For that is a fest of famine obeying a vegetable law.

Beware those who value introversion more than solitude.

Beware the ones who long to be numb.

Beware those that say you must understand that you will never be understood.

Beware those who don’t have the conditions to suffer – for they will strip yours away and demand thanks for it.

Beware the ones who teach well, but were not taught well. For they don’t know the value in the safety they’ve shown you in self-reliance. They will never see their hands relocating the chains from themselves back onto you. Be aware. For they will betray the law of lessons.

Beware the promise of free love for it is the most costly of deceptions without
Even an offer made to partner Dyonisis with Apollo;
No manner of manners will serve, no loving will ever save, when everyone is free to choose slavery.