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Open Poetry #45
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icebox
Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383
in the shadows

0 posted 2009-08-15 12:56 PM





From a cleared hilltop
on Yasgur's farm
I watched our tribe arrive.  

In four days time
a nation's children
joined and came alive.

We all made a statement,
I'm sure that it was true,
but I never saw it translated
into any language I knew.

Expanding like a universe,
I watched us grow and die
right before my eyes,
four days of mindless sex,
even screwing on manure piles
under lightning drugged out skies,
darkness in hilltop camps,
running out of water
while drowning in rain,
four ice cubes for a quarter
chanting for storms to pass,
all the chants in vain,
burning out vendors
after stealing all their food,
eating with the Pranksters,
grateful to be laughing
with the uninvited Dead.

We stayed alive
on constant music,
rain and mud and sullen skies
sound bites and denial,
later
on what we read
in lots of newspaper lies.

© 2003, 2009 by icebox

.

© Copyright 2009 icebox - All Rights Reserved
rad802
Member
since 2008-04-19
Posts 279
KY U.S.A.
1 posted 2009-08-15 02:17 PM


This really happened?
I was a little younger than you.
I missed this stuff.
Peace

A worthy legacy is the irrevocable consequence of dreaming.
Rick A. Delmonico

Midnitesun
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Empyrean
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647
Gaia
2 posted 2009-08-15 03:48 PM


I was on the west coast, unable to get to Woodstock. But in San Francisco, we did enjoy parties in The Park and Haight.
It's not at all the same feeling when you visit there today. Sad.
I never did envy those who got stuck in the stinking mud, but envied them for their chance to see so many fine bands and musicians in one place, with a collective mindset of changing the world with Love.

Enchantress
Member Empyrean
since 2001-08-14
Posts 35113
Canada eh.
3 posted 2009-08-15 06:47 PM


This was during my era...
I didn't go..wish I could have.
I recall it well..as you have also sir.

icebox
Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383
in the shadows
4 posted 2009-08-15 07:53 PM


rad;  yes, it happened. More, but not anything that passes the censor here, also some is too hard to tell.  Just as well.  No need to scare the children.  

Kacy, all can never be said.  We never cross paths, yet I count you as a dear friend.  It is good for me that you understand.

I would not ever call the 1960's a good time.  It was something to endure, from which to learn, to keep as a memory, snap shots and small vignettes of humanity that I sometimes have released in poetry to soothe my soul.  Watching a tripped out couple on a manure pile is an image that, personally, has great influence on how I viewed the "Peace and Love" movement.
Also, it is a part of my own history that that weekend was sliced out of what had become my life.

By Tuesday of the following week, I was in a Federal building again prioritizing new "assignments" for the preservation of YOUR republic.

A month later, I watched as very secretly the world stepped right to the very edge of total annihilation and I could do nothing about it but wait.  "We" survived that weekend, but my faith did not.

I envy the believers who went on believing and demonstrating and speaking out and up, so that the country could move in a better direction.  

Today, we are, again, faced with change of a totally destructive nature.  It will be only by the many voices that a new understanding may be achieved.

My choices back then were my own to make and and the karma my own to carry.  I am old now and can contribute little but memory.

My karma will be settled in other lives. That is the way of priests.

Thank you all for reading my words and for the time it takes to share your thoughts.  I wish you all well.


Callista
Member
since 2008-10-05
Posts 63
USA
5 posted 2009-08-16 01:34 AM


Maybe the language was music. The translation universal.
Thanks.
Cal

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