A Question Of A Murder

for Marla

Have you ever felt that the Sixties had been Murdered?

And what would have been your explanation?

I met a woman named Gail who was born in 1958.

Her frame of reference was Queen and U2.

Gee, I wondered, did you miss the Sixties 

AND the Seventies? Where did the time go?

To be fair I did not ask her those questions. She is 

a psychologist who specializes in PTSD therapies.

I wanted to shout out, “Wait, I’ve been there.

I can lay my body down. I know the way out.”

But I couldn’t because Cheryl interjected

to wax nostalgic about “Sgt. Pepper,” 

Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin.

Ah, yes, the music, the protests, the excitement.

Dear muse, you remember when a few things 

could start such fires, and now so rarely?

And how we reveled in everything, but today 

is unnerving. Our fires have diminished.

Verve, cohesion, and joy are harder to come by.

Oh my, what happened that unraveled us so?

It was Charles Manson. He murdered the Sixties.

From: A Rambly Search for Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 45

The Migrations Of No Ones

The Ships of States that lay out there

heaved a mighty sigh,

sending the No Ones scrambling—

some went here, some there, back and forth.

¡América!  De ti cantamos.

Are these the poor, huddled masses,

the tired, the wretched refuse, the riff-raff,

the dirty, yearning destitutes

scurrying toward our dim northern light?

Perhaps the Gadsden Purchase crossed them.

Someone called this a Promised Land—

Come get a new Anthem and a Waiver,

Officially written on Official Paper—

The irony of the so-called storied pomp?

Out here there is no Ellis Island;

no welcoming Madre de los Exiliados.

The kitchens are tidied by the riff-raff,

the wretched refuse mow the lawns,

the huddled masses harvest the fields.

Those Clever Foxies, wrapped in the flag,

call it The Invasion, with a clack of their heels

and a smirk on their lips and lies on their tongues.

The No Ones ask:

Where is your celebrated lamp?

Where is the golden door?

¿Por qué sea tan difícil?

E pluribus unum?

Not so much.

At that, the No Ones cry,

and no one says 

Amen.