Comment on this article

Hey, It Was the Sixties!
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

Peace marches...
"Hell No, We Won't Go!"
Burning draft cards,
Or library cards
If you didn't have a Selective Service card!
"Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?"
Forging birth certificates
To get our friends across the Canadian border
Thinking an FBI "jacket"
Was double breasted,
But didn’t have a Nehru collar
"Help Stamp Out Ugly Children...
Sterilize President Johnson!"
Capping acid in an apartment
On Corbett Avenue,
In Twin Peaks.
Hash brownies
Hanging out at Tracy's Donuts in the Haight.
Panhandling in the Presidio.
Flower children
Out of control!
The Greta Garbo Home
For Wayward Boys and Girls,
Super Spade with his purple paisley shirt
And his generous smile.
The daisy I painted on his black cheek.
You Are What You Eat.
The Chelsea Hotel,
The Tin Angel,
HAiR.
"Let the Sunshine In!"
Windowpane
Owsley
Harvard Yard,
Performing at the Psychedelic Supermarket,
Filmore East, and Filmore West, the Ark
Chiding girls from the stage,
"Don't sleep with him again,
until he agrees to resist the draft."
The Boston Tea Party, Club 47,
Monterrey Pop Festival,
Alcatraz,
Woodstock.
The Kinara Institute
Ravi and George
Ali Akbar and Sadruddin
"Rainy Day Raga"
Ice Bag, Maui Wowie, Elephant Grass.
R and R on Waikiki
Ranny Walrod offered me a lift
In a C-141 aircraft
From Honolulu to L.A.
On his way back from Nam,
Any time I wanted,
But Jim Dixon told me
There were body bags in the cargo hold.
So I declined.
You didn't meet me
In front of the Palacio de Belles Artes
In Mexico City,
That long hot summer,
As we had planned when we said goodbye
On Graduation Day...
You were in one of those bags.


For Michael Grimes
1946-1965





 


Return to:

[New] [Archives] [Join] [Contact Us] [Poetry in Motion] [Store] [Staff] [Guidelines]