Trash Talk

There are teens who dream and achieve
and make you proud
just to know them - I've met them, listened,
talked to them. But they've been scarce today.
Weren't at the skate park,
where I finally picked up chair
and book and grandson, heading home,
escaping from F this
and suck that, but not before I told the lot of them
what I thought about the level of conversation
in front of  young kids.
Weren't at the house I approached,
looking for grandson's newly stolen bike.
No respect, no concern.
Trashy talk from trashy people. Sad stories all, I'm sure,
and you could dress it up so that they seemed like victims of repression,
recession, Republicanism gone tragically awry (aren't they to blame
for everything these days?) and aren't they sad and how can we help,
but that was before they stole my grandson's bike (and his sister's, before it).
Now they're just thugs, every one of them. Hurt my own,
and the brush you get painted with becomes wider,
so wide right now I'm angry at the whole world.
I want to move. Leave. Pack up, head to the drama-free zone.
I just don't know where it is.