The Future Is Now Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The future

In Japan, an island where old people live
there is a push for euthanasia
after a good meal
watching spring flowers on a screen and resting
on a bed of scented roses.
To qualify, one has to be 75.
Contrast this with Harrison Ford, who at eighty
plays a hero fighting the Nazis.
Ok, close-ups are digitally advanced till he looks
35-five, smooth and wrinkle-free.
I remember a Beetle song: will you love me
When I'm 65?
To think Paul, of the Beetles, is over eighty.
My advice is: don't go West, young man, go
East and seek your fortune.
Alas, doomed to live till I die, reflecting that
I'm eighty-five and have a newspaper round to
Pay for the medicine keeping me alive.