When as a child my parents ruled,
This young man would be well schooled,
As is the nature of our young,
I responded with sharpened tongue,
As I wandered from k to eight,
My independence sealed my fate,
By the time I reached the grade of twelve,
Into drugs I began to delve,
The fate of honest working folk,
Was something I thought, quite a joke,
Working for an hourly wage,
Like a prisoner in a cage.
Janitor, waiter and traffic cop,
Worked for wages, what a flop.
Loan sharks, pimps and the dealer man,
They were the ones with a plan,
As the years went rolling by,
My youthful knowledge proved a lie,
The money men of years have died,
All in jail have proved they lied,
Now while working days on end,
Minimum wage is all they tend,
How the years have proven they,
My lowly parents knew the way,
To reach the shores of self-sufficiency,
Now requires at least one degree,
My memory isn’t what it was,
The lectures have my head abuzz.
As I climb from D to C,
Occasionally A, but mostly B;
One thing really puzzles I
As the school time passes by.
My parents never leave their home
Yet, their knowledge grows with every tome
