Valerie And This Lost Generation Poem by Stephanie Kjaerbaek

Valerie's daily life was abject
as a certified social reject
She finished her brief course
Short-term sentence
guilt a matter of recourse
She sleeps inside a shroud
on top of an (imagined) mushroom cloud.
Proper little girl
Pretty little ocean pearl
military man's daughter
indifferent father
child was a bother
junkie girl.

A man imposed with self-dread
Union jack pants in white and red
that stick to flesh on a dance floor
while the fat girls cry out to the skinny boy
'Come on come on give us some more'
Can't get a mental abstraction
or sleep that comes from
natural reaction.

Every rebel has his own conformity
His own rules for study
in his private library
just that he won't sign the official treaty
he's got his own agenda
for a different success, really.

This lost generation
historical veneration
nobody there to tell
them there's a reason to rebel
nothing left for them
only calculated moments
never a sheer thrill on a whim
just a lean future the moneyhungry skim
while time is wearing off a little thin.

This lost generation
generation lost
warm breeze that freezes up
to a chilly frost
staring at the ocean one last time
with its garbage and its glitter
a tidal wave that crashes the
dams down is not a crime.