Zip Up Young Man!
Yo! You with the
trailin’
droop-scooped
drawers!
Yeah, I’m
talkin’ n’
talkin’
to you
hardware-face.
I weep
(that means cry)
for the kids
of the world
who’d trade
10 years
just to have
what you
cannot even see.
Hard though it may be
to believe now;
I was young once,
or maybe it was
a couple of times.
I know you must
make yourself special
different from what
has gone before
or you will cease
to exist at all.
But just once in a while
couldn’t you look
around you?
See the richness
of what you’re
trying to surpass?
If you hate the
mistakes of the past
you’d better know
something about them.
Or you’ll wear them
around your neck
like an albatross
(that’s a bird)
And by the way
Pull your
DAMN
pants up!
Alan Katerinsky is an assistant professor of computer security at Hilbert College whose poetry rarely ever mentions computers. Thank goodness for that.
Note: Zip Up originally appeared in the local arts weekly newspaper ArtVoice, July 11-17, 2002