Sonnets From Other Lives: Reuben

It’s the Arab world’s 1968
& we all know how that one worked out.
All the kids will man the barricades.
They’ll sacrifice themselves then get sold out
by their elders, us, or else themselves.
I’ve been here before. I know the story:
Chicago, Prague or Paris--you might tell
yourself you’re making history. It’s boring
because in the end the end is tragic-comic.
History played out one more time as farce.
Will aging middle class farts in the Islamic
world wax nostalgic on the part
they played in their long lost revolution?
I’ll take cynicism over absolution.