Sparked by St. Anthony’s Fire,
high on "love and peace"
In a Haight society,
Flower Power Child in bare feet . . .

Picture the uncensored conscious
in a paisley shirt,
growing long sideburns, ditching’ 45's
with those stupid, record center inserts

Ovaltine and Bosco, replacing crew cuts and do’s
With "long hairs" on choppers, turned on by Captain Kangaroo
"Breaking on through to the other’s..." framed,
The Who, Janis, Jimi, and Jefferson Airplane

In total harmony,
to the best of The Rolling Stones
The Magic Carpet Ride of music,
 Steppenwolffed a "Motherload!"

"Keep on Truckin’,"
men in ruffled shirts,
dance to The Dead or Diggers
with one of Betsy Wetsy's Playmates in a little mini skirt

Dippity-do, going door to door, Lassie, drinking Kool-aid,
chant, "make love not war"
Paddle swats in schools, the real penny loafers . . .
Free food and pay toilets; psychedelic concepts painted on hippie buses

Tube tops, troll dolls, and Jackie O’ glasses,
Tie dies and headbands, mouthed with the waxed lips of "No Hassles"
To the A&P by day, in pink polka dots
to a Cuckoos Nest at night, trippin’ on "acid rock"

Fantasy’s at Avalon and Fillmore East,
surrealistic journeys, giving the "sign of peace"
Protests in picket lines, link the gum wrapper chains
Woodstock’s in a downpour of yet, another reign

Spoolies in the hair, smoking candied cigarettes’
Letting it all hang out, braless,
groovin’
against the picking up of stiffs

Like clothes on the line,
pinned with conformist tiddley winks,
the Beatnik boy’s were unfurled with the contemporaries of Brando’s finks

Counter cultural rebels, footing platform shoes
Leathered, fringed and bangle’d, singing to the Moody Blues
Smiley faces of joy on a Duncan yo-yo
Cannabis "stoneheads" twisted in a Chinese jump rope

Panhandle, Lincoln and Golden Gate Park
"Born to be Wild," Sunset Stripping in the dark
Kennedy and King, and "Imagine," by Lennon;
...and "Who surrendered to whom?"
"Peace, not war", to No Knock Laws; Now. . . "How does rioting ensue?"

The album covers are still laying under the chenille bed spreads
with the drive-in movies, station wagons, and "Everything I Own" by Bread
108 crayons boxed, with hot pinks and limes,
"Are Mexican jumping beans and Mood Rings still selling at the
Five n’ Dime?"

A Brook Farm ideology; Another utopian time
Cruisin’ on inner tubes of Schwinn, I’m darning my toe socks in rhyme
Pop bottle refunds supplanted Kick the Can
and yeah . . . we’re still flowering guns of soldiers . . .
"Iraq’d, by Vietnam!"

Copyright June 2007
Kimmy Van Kooten