Retrospective Of A Boomer (part 4 of 4)

It sometimes seems like a dream, Right? Timothy Leary,

LSD, “Voices in the Sky,” In Search of the Lost Chord,

Haight-Ashbury, flower children (I wasn’t one but wished

I had been...I opted to be a hippie. Mind, they aren’t the same.);

lost in that murky realm between childhood and

a notion of lust and desire; wrestling hope and uncertainty;

alcohol, music, brilliant successes to dismal failures,

Vietnam disrupting the post-WWII “American Dream” 

of Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, the Cleavers,

Norman Rockwell, and The Saturday Evening Post. 

Yet...there were race riots, Kent State, police brutality,

non-violent protests, War on Poverty, voting rights;

anti-establishment, racial equality, First Amendment rights,

women’s rights, “I have a dream,” and “... give peace a chance.”

The 1960s were too big, too much for anyone to grasp.

Some of us found a corner or a niche or a room with a view

and watched events unfold from everywhere we were not;

bemused, confused, excited by the chaos, many were rebels

in search of a cause, faced with the decision of either jumping

into the rough and tumble or crawling back into the womb,

alienated and disillusioned about what to do 

or where to go, just as we watched in the final scene 

of The Graduate, Benjamin and Elaine 

riding the bus to who knows where, 

and I and thousands of others were suddenly

brothers and sisters riding along with them.

From: A Meandering Search for

Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 44

I Saw It On Television (The American Dream #2)

 At seventeen, though a hopeful young man,

I had no clue about living the American Dream.

I thought the American Dream was illusory. 

It existed in Disneyland, in the imaginations

of editors and magazine cover art,

in images of gender roles and success,

in the slogans of politicians,

the tough independence of the Marlboro Man;

Better living through Chemistry;

Progress is our most important product,

and twisted into other perverse advertising mantras.

There was something there I wanted

but I couldn’t explain what it was,

perhaps the desire for a secure future,

but the end of it all, of our collective innocence,

was when television showed the riots 

and bloodied heads; showed the Zapruder film

of President Kennedy’s assassination over and over; 

showed trampled dreams, 

bludgeoned civil rights, and the fiery-eyed 

youth in protest marches ready 

to dispense their own brand of assertiveness.

Mary Ann Vecchio became the symbol

of helplessness and anguish at Kent State,

and it put the Viet Nam War and body counts

into our living rooms and on our laps.

An entire way of life, however imagined,

was slaughtered before our very eyes,

exposing the hatred and violence 

of an America stirred from the bottom up,

exploding through the top.

From: Searching For Donna Reed,

Norman Rockwell, & The American Dream

Unpub. MS #2 of 5