Tarnished Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

Further to be tarnished.
Is the image given to prestige.
And the pretentiousness,
Of kept etiquette.
Expensively displayed.
Yet fading away these days.
As those who have obtained social status,
Reveal more to have a taste...
For decadence and deception.
Up in faces to erase,
Age old traditions in established places.
Once held to be sacred.
Worshipped.
Imitated and praised.

Tarnished and admonished.
Appalled and shocked,
Are those remaining in masquerade to charade...
Beliefs to keep.
Affixed to historic and ancient treats.
Fed to the minds,
Of the ones...
With noses upturned and among the 'elite'.
Wanting to be noticed as if royalty.
But their days are fading fast.
Since those they may pass,
On any street in any city.
Have begun to abandon the need,
To live life deceiving themselves.
Just to please someone false.
Long to have been divorced from reality.