Generations

by Douglas G. Cala

We swore we would not become them.
Swore the oak of our virtue was not
hollow at the core.
We called ourselves reformers, torchbearers,
architects of a cleaner republic.

But they once shouted too—
once tore at the foxes in their henhouses, They
named corruption
Then comfort came.
Then compromise.
Then power tasted sweet. And they
became the very rot they pledged to
excise.

History is not a lesson—
it is a laundering machine for empire. War
budgets swell like tumors.
Markets convulse.
The middle class is wrung out—pockets
turned inside out
while billionaires write the tax code in
disappearing ink.

Inflation stalks the grocery aisle. Rent
climbs like barbed wire.
And we are told to be patient.

So where does the AI generation stand? Bent-
necked before blue-lit idols,
fed algorithms instead of bread, outrage
packaged,
dissent monetized. Will
they march—or merely
scroll?

Revolutions are not inherited. They
are chosen.
To sit on laurels is treason. To repeat
the cycle is consent.

History does not flutter gently. It
detonates.

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Douglas G. Cala is an award-winning spoken word poet, multimedia/IT support specialist, and essayist based in NYC. For more than two decades, he has been writing and performing poetry with his work widely published across four continents. He has appeared at renowned venues including Busboys and Poets, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Cutting Room and the New York City Poetry Festival, among many others. In 2025, he released Ambrosia, a grant funded spoken word poetry album. His debut poetry collection, Lyrical Sustenance, is due for release in Winter 2027 by Northeast Coast Press.