Canon Fodder

Times are hard for the immortals.
Young lovers no longer try to impress them.
Girls not only snap their gum, but cast cold eyes
on their nether regions.
Boys not only yawn, but don't even take pride anymore
in pretending they know what's going on.
They all come, young and old, equipped with gotchas,
the you shoulda done this'es,
you didn't do that's,
the how could you do this to humanity and me brickbats.
Of course the immortal is innocent as charged,
he might as well be Pegasus in the clouds,
it's just the indignity of having it forced on them--
he thinks he's all that, they snobbishly say,
or he thinks he's better than me, or
I bet, even though he's dead, he puts his pants on
one leg at a time - and by the way only a moron would claim
that his shit don't stink better than mine.

Times are hard for the immortals.
All their thunderbolts hit lightning rods.
No one notices anymore all the people they turned into gold.
At least their rebellious spawn knew, if not what they said
or the way that they said it, at least that there was a certain
weight to them that meant they must be destroyed.
Now the mere fact they are still alive - albeit dead -
is enough to warrant a drive by (and need I point out
today's machine guns are not near as nice as they used to be
when the pen was mightier than the cut and paste).

Times are hard for the immortals.
The demands on their time never end.
Between having to reach consensus
among diverse participants
to being a guest of honor at wakes,
there's very little time to be dead,
to let the sunlight filter through
the rarefied air they've left behind
as a reminder to those who don't look
that every person ever born has changed the world.