We are caught between two rising,
resurrected and revived Mammoths,
what chance did we,
the children of the atomic clock,
have against the generation of the
Baby Boomer and the Millennial
who look down upon Generation X
as if we caused all the problems in the world
we inherited it from the Victorians
and we could not get a word in edge ways
as children, suffer the silence,
suffer the disdain, suffer the attacks of personality
that Generation X are feckless, that we
were the generation of the cultural shift
where the child was left to roam,
latch key kid and who the sexual revolution
passed us by because of the spectre
of short name disease making us
careful where we slept, yet
we inhabited a world where we became
the first to be sexualised by society’s needs
and fantasies, constantly told by the pre World War
shaking limbs in corner shops, making sure they
were always first in line, twenty
Silk Cut fags and half hour moan about
The Punk look of hate we gave you Whitehouse
was there because Morrison was dead
and because we had somewhere to be,
but Generation X had nowhere to find solace,
yet we found the right along the way
to not conform, to be punk, to be wasted
and uncontrolled, we fought back
against a system that hated us,
that still hates us, that will continue to hate and flaunt
its general thoughts that we hid
in the houses and avoided the crack
pot epidemic
if we could, that the symbols of war meant
more to us than they knew and played in the bomb damage
still visible, holes in the ground
cross dressed as play areas
that were warned could drown us
when they filled with dirty rampant,
rat filled water, diseased and flushed out
by the sound of Prog, Genesis beats and Pink Floyd
damnation, King Crimson possessing
the intensity and only elevated by the tension
of Punk, of the Punk, of the drama of two minute
orgasm and dysfunctional submission,
panting breath, Generation X delivered
and yet we still are damned as we first rejected God,
then rejected the bomb, the notion of being
the children of the children
who had children too early, whilst all along
we were the Rael, the punk,
the generation X with no soul,
no right but we forged and packaged ourselves.
To the Baby Boomers we were anarchy,
Uncontrollable
Unforgiveable
Unwanted
Undeserved
and oh so out of touch space cadet monopoly…
to the ones that have pushed infront of
we are all that and more,
as they check their digital screens,
we are the feckless, we are the ones
who live in the shadows, not in the shadow
of the bomb…
We are Generation X and we are trapped
between two worlds colliding.
Ian D. Hall 2016