olwm

wise men or old fools

the soft hearts of youths 

cannot learn the difference

for the world is too terrible to tell

Reviews

[𝐋.𝐂.]

There are people who are wise but act they're not, on one other hand,
there are people just fools.
We can only wish they use their wisdom when the world needs them.

[Bala Gorthi]

Another short and loaded one! Yes, sometimes wise men do look like old fools as their words of wisdom are not understood clearly by all and the youth are easily misled.And the situation today is worse so one is always in confusion..
Your write is as usual is beautifully meaningful.. Check the typo of "to terrible"..,
Thanks for this one.. Keep sharing...

[Monica Chen]

One little typo where "to" should be "too" in the last line.

I really feel as if the entire poem being in lowercase helps to set the tone of this poem -- pessimistic and undiscriminating where age or any other distinguishing trait can't prevent the universality of habit, ignorance, or whatever it is we can't seem to learn.

The last line was well written in that it appears ambiguous whether it is humans who are the actors and can't "tell" in a "world too terrible" or if the world is being personified and the world itself is terrible and refuses to tell us to learn the difference.