What would Joey Ramone, Joe Strummer and David Bowie Say?
By Shane Robitaille
To the quiet souls who
look at the mad world
and want to climb to the
top of the roof and shout,
but they’re too shy,
or not sure what
people would think,
they might say that
your unique voice matters
more than you know,
and that the world needs to
wake up anyway,
so shout your most powerful
primal scream ever,
louder than a jumbo-sized
80s boombox, and then shout
again, and again.
To the poets who are toiling
into the night wrestling ideas
and words, painstakingly trying
to get each syllable perfect,
each word perfectly placed,
they might say that this
spectacular life is too messy,
too complicated, wildly
imperfect, and doesn’t have the
patience to wait for you,
so don’t worry about impossible
perfection, and get your damn
ideas and words out there.
To the rebels who think that
it’s a waste of time to challenge
the status quo, to make their
elders wince, to question
everything because everything
deserves to be questioned,
they might say that
EVERYTHING THAT
MATTERS ONCE STARTED OUT
AS AN IMPOSSIBLE IDEA,
A PREPOSTEROUS NOTION,
AND WAS CONSIDERED NEVER
ACHIEVABLE, SO TALK HARD,
REBEL HARD, AND WATCH
EVERYBODY FOLLOW YOUR LEAD.
To the young people who want
to take a stand but think they won’t
be taken seriously, that they don’t
have enough experience, or that
things will never change,
they might say that you are more
powerful than you believe, that you’re
braver than you know, and that the
rule makers have run out of
original ideas, so don’t wait until
you’re older, when the weight
of the world will try to pull
your wildest dreams down to earth.
Stand up now.
And they might tell us to be kind,
to try to find beauty every day,
to be our most authentic selves,
and never take a second for granted,
because they too were quiet souls,
restless poets, anxious rebels,
and young, and they never had
a chance to finish what they started.
Take a walk on the wild side and check out my latest book, Punk Rock Soul, available for $5 on Etsy and ships worldwide.
