My contemporaries speak a lot
and say: "So, here's how it is"
in the brazen manner of ones fed
by the sound of their own voices as they start
explaining at length present trends
in the arts, humanities or those societies,
which are becoming, little by little, the same
as each other, in this first world where we were born,
now that the second world has ceased to exist
and the third, take war leave hunger,
keeps its abstraction, in folkloric distance.
It seems metaphysics is dead
and truth sleepwalks, wandering
the empty corridors where
some of my contemporaries' millions
of sentences meet in the dark. Still,
they speak of everything enthusiastically,
throwing in decisive ‘proposals'
and riding the ‘challenges' of new paths
for mankind, while enjoying
alcohol-free beer, decaffeinated
coffee and, above all,
loveless love, to be able to maintain
their physical and mental balance.
My contemporaries almost always say
they do not moralise, and that's why
they force everybody to be free, healthy, happy,
even the ones who don't want to be:
they forbid tobacco, sugar
and, whenever in pain, they take pills