MY GENERATION

My generation sat on the brim of the ocean,
waiting for the tide to bring something in.

My generation
was populated with boozehounds and pillheads,
crude clowns and bedspreads stained with the
neon dreams of cocaine fiends,
I mean
the diamond flooded visions of sex kittens
who sweat bullets, glitter and Chanel
I mean
the ones who
live in debt buy spray cans of fake tan
I mean
the ones who drop out of college to get collagen
hoping to hook with pop collar gen Y men with
copycat tattoos,
footy contracts and right angled jaws.
Hoping to ride
amphetamine horses and red Porsches
into clubs
whose shelf life is over right.
about.
NOW.

My generation
took solace in
false prophets who promised change
and did more of the same,
whose ideologies of optimism
were turned into
fridge magnets and bumper stickers-
YES WE CAN

Yes, we witnessed
prime ministers slain.
Hushed coups in the halls of parliament-
heads rolled over bad polls, tongues lolled,
drums rolled as newspapers harmonised like baying wolves.
New kings and queens smiled for the all seeing camera’s eyes
that blink but never flinch.
Freshly anointed “leaders” with polished teeth and long knives-
they would smile
deep down knew that
the guillotine waited also for them.

My generation
bloomed with the blood of artists
who sent messages in bottles
that ended up lodged in bleached coral,
and humanity was a deep fossil to be fossicked
some day by a people other than us.
While the traditional custodians of the land
sweated in the concrete gizzards of govvo flats
left wing activists sipped red wine
and talked of reform.

My generation had hot buttered sex to
cookie cutter music.
We made autotuned love and men learnt how
to have sex on a curriculum of
pixellated pink pornstar pussy
and double D tits and digital dicks.

We made love between oil spills and massacres,
tangoed between
the headlines of history,
flitting between
hush love making and murder,
draughts of cool wine and hellish salt pans wimpling
with dancing mirages
that brought brief joy to our desiccated hearts.

My generation never stopped being children.

We grew wearier, but not wiser,
we grew older, but not up,
and our only possessions were our winged imaginations,
sitting on the brim of the ocean,
waiting for the tide to bring something in.