by Geoff Jones
Hallucinations
In floating leaves
In swirling snowflakes
In swarms of bees
In stale abstraction
Warhol preaches
Uppers and downers
While Dylan teaches
Lennon and Nixon
Provide us with clues
As billows of smoke
Obscure and confuse
Smiling or grieving
In death or birth
Traditions discarded
Of little worth
Potions and pills
In life appeased
In altered states
In senses teased
The Sounds of Silence
In deafening truth
A clash for the ages
Politics and youth
Young men drafted
As draft cards burned
Reason suspended
Nothing was learned
Huntley and Brinkley
Reporting the war
On color TV’s
We couldn’t ignore
Toying with danger
Never at rest
A national anthem
Put to the test
Moon shots and photos
Both hazy and clear
Principles dashed
In acid and beer
Button down collars
Shoulder length hair
Cultural clashes
In soothsayer dares
Colorful people
Apparently freed
Fifty years later
Remaining in need
Tie-dyed ideals
As decades advance
Time machine pennies
Wagered on chance
Cities on fire
Let freedom ring
A president lost
The death of a king
Women are muted
Indentured and bound
By jailers in suits
Steinem is crowned
Napalm and missiles
Explode in mid-air
Heroes are made
But return in despair
Drugs and confusion
In anarchy reign
Questions were posed
Yet questions remain
All of the promise
In slogans and rhyme
All but forgotten
With the passage of time
A decade’s failure
Pregnant with change
Dreams unachieved
Nothing was gained
Love is the answer
Or so it was said
Where did it go
I think it is dead
Consider today
Acknowledge the shame
In innocence lost
While diverting the blame
Like a whirling dervish
Who desperately tried
The sixties reside
In answers denied