The Sixties*

The Sixties

 

I  (The Fooly Times)

 

Patchouli oil

Patterned shirts

Puffed sleeves

Bellbottoms slow swaggering

Octagonal glasses

Faceted bug eyes

Blue and red

Coloring Sunny Goodge Street.

 

Pass the roach, coach

Teach me how to fly

Beatles beating in the background

Beer on the Bar.

Everyone smiling at an in joke

Flowers crown the woman with the auburn hair.

 

Crowds in the park

Mercedes and Motorcycles

Topless men and women

Challenging blue men

Who wanted to be arresting

Real criminals

Sadly dragged in squatters

Who lost their rights.

 

Brightness dashed

Psychedelic searches

Colors sought

In vague rituals

Amazing laughter

Understanding lost

Among those who

Carried reality as a badge.

 

II (The Shooters)

 Killing Camelot

And the man in the moon

an ocelot stole the future

left us in doubt

froze us

waiting for another savior

giving a man

too funny and too sad

to be the jester or

the undertaker

 

Blackness shades the Memphis Motel

Blended with the same red

You and I fear to spill.

Non-violence packed it in

And hope careened

In never ending ricochet.

 

The brother bit back

Until another snake spit.

 

Weary of wailing

Of laconic lamenting

The people retreated

Shooting back

To begin

Another decade.

 

III  (The Other War)

 Can I play in your jungle, Jim?

Let’s shoot sparks

And turn villages into campfires.

Wonder why

Brothers and sisters don’t understand.

 

Let’s play in your clay more

Sculpt statues

We don’t understand

Honoring a system

That builds castles in the sand.

 

When we’re finished playing

We return home

To find our parents have left for Washington

To show everyone

Their conscience.