BY: Craig Kurtz

Based on Middleton and Rowley’s play The Old Law

We’re going to obviate them all
’cause being old’s against the law;
we’ve legislation that now bans
all crones and coots and their bedpans.
We’re done with them and their bad backs,
their politics and their earwax;
they had their shot, they’ve had their say —
their blatherings are démodé.
Ah, yes, ‘it’s for your own damn good’ —
their fav’rite word, I’m sure, is ‘should’;
they give advice to everyone
except themselves, then it’s no fun;
for years, we’ve heard them sneer and scold —
if they’re so smart, how’d they get old?
They’ve hogged the spotlight and they’ve run
the country they think they begun;
well, now it’s time to step aside —
someone inform ’em that they died.
It’s time that we got rid of them
with their sagacity and phlegm;
we’ve had enough of their mistakes,
their speeches and their bellyaches.
What they have done for world affairs
deserves a good kick down the stairs;
when they’re removed, then things will be
utopian, and hassle-free;
we’ll have no wars when they are gone,
we’ll all look great with swimsuits on;
we won’t hear ‘hmph, I told you so’ —
inheriting won’t be so slow.
The world is for adventurers,
not fuddy-duddies with dentures;
we’re extirpating the old guard —
they really shouldn’t take it hard;
and when time’s up for you and me,
we’ll reconsider this decree.

Craig Kurtz is the author of Wortley Clutterbuck’s Practical Guide to Deplorable Personages, illustrated by Anni Wilson. Recent work published by Rattle, Perceptions and William & Mary Review. More content at https://kurtzandwilson.blogspot.com.