It must seem like a mountain of folly
to the old people, but we take our chances
and we’re always on the ready.

We’re on the ready, right now, and yet
they think we’re just a troubled handful
of trouble, just can’t go straight,

can’t go straight like the arrow of time
that speeds from ancient times to right now
to get you between the eyes. This is the realm

behind the eyes, with its whip-quick
answers to how to behave, its cheap vow
to be better, much better, quickly broken

so that what is not better is boarding
at boarding time, those giant flying machines.
We take a drag, and fuck the lung.

Fuck the drag of the air, the horizon’s curve.
We’re all going on a summer holiday, already gone
into sad age waiting, with just a wave.

‘Young folly’ began as a draft using the end-words of ‘The young’ by Roddy Lumsden