‘What are we going to do with you?’
My parents would say to me,
‘We want you to work in a banking house,
But you write poetry.
You may look back on a wasted life
If that was all you did,
You need to steady, and take a wife
So you’ll need to make a quid.’

While I, in all of my innocence
Would look at them, askance,
‘If life were just about money, then
I think I’d rather dance.
I don’t believe that it’s all about
The grind, amassing wealth,
I cast my fate to the winds, let that
Take care of it, itself.’

I needed to be creative so
I scribbled, more and more,
Composing the perfect poems that
Did not exist before,
They didn’t earn me a single quid
But that was not the plan,
A part of me will be left behind
Once I am done with man.

And so I tell the Millennials
Don’t waste your time with sweat,
But add something to your culture that
Has not been written yet,
Whether your art is writing, music,
Painting, poetry,
The question, ‘What will you do with you?’
In time, will set you free.

David Lewis Paget