They called us nihilistic, we the latchkey

kids without supervision

as the post war post war children

dictated the every move

in the spirit of Victoria

and didn’t even leave us Jimmy Dean

to rebel alongside, we the latchkey

kids who were taught through the voice

of John Hurt, that sex could kill,

yet we held on to our latchkey

status in hope we could get someone home

to hold us for a while, we the latchkey

kids to whom Aids and the Crack

of dawn were but words to fear

and see the tombstone fall

as easily as Jimmy Dean

taking a last simple breath

as he glances at the world in

which the rebel no longer had a clue,

we the latchkey

kids, the generation between hope and hope,

our nihilism driving us on,

our heroes anti this, anti that,

and in some dark corner as Time runs out

we became seen as slackers, as the disaffected

cynical, yet we were no slackers

we were dying inside as we fought the world,

we fought the world

and Victoria’s shadow, the long

line of the dysfunctional

that refused to believe

we could change the world

and in our grunge, in our willing

to bow to down to no fucker

in ties and suits and without

the latchkey experience,

we died inside

as the hero died, the smell of cordite

hitting our nostrils as surely

as that of the old sailor

with gun to hand

or the one last glass of Bourbon

raised high and then slumped over in pain

in a hotel in New York or on the road…

we the latchkey kids, who lost our minds

in search of pleasure

after the Summer of Love had long since turned

stone diseased sour, we were the latchkey kids

with no doors to open.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017