Waste Treatments
It’s said that youth is wasted on the young,
And other such extravagances hold:
High class is wasted on those thereamong;
Maturity is wasted on the old.
Beginner’s luck is wasted on beginners
(Why can’t we all succeed despite the odds?)—
Nefariousness wasted on the sinners,
Omnipotence, all wasted on the gods.
Discoveries are wasted on the prober,
And let it thus be copied, cut and pasted:
Sobriety’s as wasted on the sober
As wastedness is wasted on the wasted.
Brendan Beary lives in Maryland. His works have appeared in Lighten Up Online, 14×14, The Spectator, and The Washington Post. He is, in general, loath to write about himself in the third person.