Vermilion

Once, it was beauty.
Now, it's just "hot".
Once, we were masters of all we survey!
Now, what have you got?
Passion is "obsessive compulsive".
Morality, merely a guide.
The glory of a summer sunset
comes down to mercuric sulfide.
Once, it was the face that launched a thousand ships!
Now, adult content and a thousand clicks.
Once, what we would have given to kiss those lips!
Now, we "got game" and a bag full of tricks.
Respect has become a four-letter word
and ethics will never make you a star.
This vast excess of accessible knowledge!
Still, we do not know where to go to mine the cinnabar.
...or what it is... ...or of what I speak.
How can a nation so strong- demanding what is right from wrong!
- come across as so feable and weak?
Yet, it is the meak that speaks out we are toxic,
no matter what form the compound may take.
The message is clear- we need but to hear
- it is the mind of the listener that is opaque.
Take me back to vermillion days!
To the china red sunset of antiquity!
Cast me far from these heathen ways,
far from thes stalkers of promiscuity.
Allow me to bask in the final rays
of an orangish-red day's lament.
For once, we owned our destinies!
Now, we hardly make the rent.