local_library A Toast to Mankind

by Justine Akbari

Published in Issue No. 264 ~ May, 2019

A sprinkle for the sordid consumption

of a time light years past;

A pour for the open-ended questions

and life’s unyielding complexity;

A shower for those that came before

and those still yet to come;

A waterfall for the righteous future

for which a stream will flow behind it.

 

Permissible are the behaviors that once were scorned

welcome are the ideas that once were not.

Disregarded are the actions that were once considered noble,

challenged are the truths that were once accepted as a universal law.

 

Virtuous ineptitude

Irascible valiance

Envious mediocrity —

A time when all who falter won’t fail;

A time when all who deceive won’t writhe in guilt;

A time when all who act indecently won’t stand trial

to those pervasive tendencies that are consuming

a generation.

Embrace the impossible?

Integrate the inescapable?

March forward with confidence into the world we’ve come to know as it’s inevitably

always been.

 

Homogeneity of an expansive population,

a diverse population

an individualist and isolated population

a lonely population

a suffering population.

Homogeneously suffering from the very thing

driving it to push boundaries, inspire creativity, incite a philosophical

revolution on what we perceive

as (our) right.

 

Sedating ourselves with passive entertainment;

the colors, the sounds, the lights, the action —

political tool or ingenious craft?

Contributing to existence once devoid of vibrancy.

 

Inept virtuosity

Valiant irascibility

Mediocre envy —

A time when we validate all artistic creation

despite former parameters that distinguished novice from virtuoso;

A time when all who assert the human condition

stand trial in the face of their peers;

A time when the common man does not envy those

who have qualities he does not.

 

A sip for the obtrusive candor

of those who seek connection where it is lacking.

A taste for incestuous boundaries

and all those brave enough to grace the path of moral ambiguity.

An indulgence for the narcissistic altruism

of those seeking a world-loving self.

 

A toast then,

to the precarious future designed by thine own hand, and all those brave enough to experience it.

 

 

account_box More About

Justine Akbari is a New York City resident in training, aspiring pantomath, and writer of life as she experiences it--often through an anxious, over-stimulating lens. A half-Persian, midwestern transplant, she now resides in the hipster haven that is Bushwick, Brooklyn, where she works in B2B media by day and writes poetry and beer descriptions by night.