Albuquerque volcanos at dusk — February 15, 1998 —- photo by Mark Weber
SUNDAY MATINEE
It has been a snowy week here
……….in this New Mexico hidden out of sight
with the sun breaking through here and there
the Love Generation convenes at a little movie house on old Rt.66
to see . . . .
How did we get so old?
I’ll tell you how: Time has gone by
The generation that was so right (a little overly-idealistic, but right)
stalwart, still hanging on, tie-dyes, madras scarves, beads, ponytails, serapes,
turtlenecks, one half-bald scraggly-haired guy with an Ultimate Spinach tee shirt,
eyes gleaming probably from one too many acid trips, a few guys that look
like Baba Ram Das, another “young” lady in tee shirt that says: I’ve Gone to Pot,
it’s a time warp . . . .
O, what is “old” anyway?
I’ll tell you what old is! All that LSD talk about the non-existence of Time’s Arrow
was a bunch of claptrap, at least, as far as the body is concerned
Looks like some of these people arrived by shuttle from
the Happy Dale Psychedelic Rest home via Kesey’s bus
(Was the Lawrence Welk Show canceled this afternoon?)
Come in on canes, bent-over, hobbling gray-haired Generation Gap-tooth’d
LSD shell-shocked gleam in their eyes
Full house to see a film about a sorrowful time, when Janis died
so young, she wasn’t suppose to die, but she did, way too soon,
she had so much more to learn, like all of us: We had so much
more to learn . . . . How is it our fate
that we survived?
. . . I was going to stir up some more laughs about the Sixties veterans
but this poem has other places to go:
Sojourners all
third eye unblinking
echoes
Is texting same as tweeting? we don’t know, and
why should we care, we have telepathy!
yoga
yogurt
carrot juice
pranayama
tattoos of OM
the rent
disenchantment
Some of us fell off the planet into
drug addiction
alcoholism
jail
rehab
Some of us infiltrated government
Some of us radio
Do they still make wingtips?
The dream back then was self-sufficiency
grow your own
Think of every turn and choice in life that
has brought us to this: A movie house in Albuquerque
to pay our respects for one so gifted who perished
in those supercharged days, a little misstep and she caught a rock
Tell me it isn’t so: We all got old ——
Peace & Love
The last march of the flower children
The hippies who dreamed so hard . . . . .
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that,
Time to go watch Forrest Gump, again
4&5jan16
“Catching a rock” is Southern California junk jargon of the 70s & 80s —- dope is cut with milktoast
because only a few tiny crystals of heroin comprises a dose, unregulated to be sure, so that sometimes a larger crystal (rock) slips past the mortar & pestle stage of preparation: Every junkie catches a rock now & again, you can feel it before the needle is pulled out, hopefully you have someone nearby who knows how to revive you with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
well said, Mark. I just arrived with 2 buddies to San Francisco for the summer, 1968. We went to check out Golden State Park the next day. To our surprise there was Janis, with Big Brother and the Holding Company, giving a free concert. Great start to a great summer.
Mark, this poem really catches it. The then and the now.
You nailed it Big Web!
If anything, old age is a wonderful source of irony.
dino
“Prisoners of the Sixties…” –John Breckow
love this, Mark… it’s SO true and blue… sad and fab… you got us all nailed to our sit ‘n’ sleeeep soft-butt-padded bed..
I’ve been asked to read this poem Live on the air this Saturday night on the Psychedelic Radio Headshoppe which runs 10pm to One A.M. and I think the Doctor said I’d go on somewheres just after 11.
Thats streaming on the web > KUNM.org
or in old style terrestrial radio > KUNM 89.9 FM
Saturday January 9