Generation

Generation

A child of the Baby Boom
The Cold War
The Ozzie and Harriet world
Of Howdy Doody
And Sky King
The black and white eye
On the hardwood floor.

All the grownups smoked
Endlessly and played cards.

A wonder bread world of
Tree shaded sidewalks
In small town America

Reality impinged with
Shifting scenes
A parade of schools
Overflowing school buses
A neighborhood of raw earth
Cinder blocks and raw lumber
Kids everywhere
And still too often alone.

A white world with
A new young president
And his pretty wife
An uncle circling Cuba
As my parents stared endlessly
At news that they seemed
Not to want to hear

Dallas on TV after school
The world weeping
Seeing Jack Ruby shoot Oswald
John-John saluting
Making my mother sob aloud.

Alice in Wonderland,
The Wizard of Oz
The Mysterious Island
Steps to the Stars
Red Planet

Black people marching
On the news singing hymns
Met with nightsticks and firehoses.
King with his soaring
Mesmerizing voice
The ringing rhetoric of a Dream

Another shooting and
More madness
Cities burning
A long season of rage.

Then the War grew endless reports
With the troops
Eventually becoming a body count
At the end of the news
‘and that’s the way it is…’

Catch 22
Catcher in the Rye.
Stranger in a Strange Land

The Beat goes on
My Generation
White Rabbit
All Along the Watchtower
(Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

And the madness too
'Neck deep in the big muddy
And the big fool said to push on…'

Sex and drugs and rock and roll
And never trust anyone over 30
Looking for 3 days of Peace and Love

It was so important then
And trying to make it right

Jackson State
Kent State
The Days of Rage
After tricky Dick expanded the War

Beer and wine
And learning the costs
Trying to survive the madness
With madness
Having a friend hallucinate
In the cafeteria of high school
Whose superintendent turned down anti-drug money
Because there was 'no drug problem here'

Learning to drink whiskey
Descending into smoky dives
Full of thunderous music
Occasionally even good music.
A wandering wavering trip
‘And a long strange trip it’s been..’
The times they are a changing..

Since then I have learned
Many hard won lessons,
Neither to quickly nor too well.
As to the madness which seemed
Always to impinge I just don’t know.

The times are still a changing,
But they don’t seem to be any
Less full of madness.