We were the ones,
Self-chosen ones,
And we had seen enough.
And we had heard enough
To be tired of the drama;
The games that our mamas
And our Papas played
The plans they laid
That so often did not work.
The pensions and the perks
That so often left them bitter
Mumbling curses about quitters
As they argued over parking spaces
And carefully averted their faces
When people were denied rights
Because they were not white
Or sometimes because Jews
And non-whites could not be
Members of their sororities
And country club amenities.

They demanded no dark skin
And objected to what we dressed in
And wanted us to cut our hair
And go find a decent job somewhere
To start an acceptable career
And get a decent nine to five
To work as long as we were alive.
We knew they were trying to protect
To drive us to the life they projected
That would help us get a salary
And develop the kind of misery
And sense of hopelessness;
The exact kind of mess
They were living
And they weren’t forgiving
When we rebelled and fought
And shunned the trinkets they bought
That they thought would tempt us
To buckle on the harness;
The long-term promise.

We rejected the temptation
To join the workaday nation
And get into the drinking
Nine-to-five way of thinking.
We swapped the whiskey
For something they found risky.
We smoked our marijuana
And talked about nirvana
In our love-beads and batik
We left family homes to seek
And ultimately to find friends
Who wanted the same ends
And would work with us,
And they would walk with us
To the love-ins and protests
And help us pen requests
For marches and gatherings
To demonstrate our misgivings
About who got what
And who did not
And how and when
And which were not seen as men.
But we saw poorly disguised slaves
We knew we wanted to save.

We were going to fix the world
So, we waded into insults hurled
And high-powered fire hoses.
They broke our arms and noses
And trod on our signs
And drew a line
Between us and the public.
We were criminals and suspects
In crimes they invented;
We patchouli oil scented
Hippies wearing Birkenstocks
Without any socks
And jeans with protest patches
Singing our snatches of songs
Like “We Shall Overcome Someday”.
They couldn’t hear a word we would say.
They just cursed us and objected
And made sure we were subjected
To as much stonewalling as the law
Could put up against us all.

We were going to fix the world,
And we got LBJ on our side, like Jack
He went on the attack
And changed things for the better
Still not to the letter of the law
But a bit more spirit
Began to exist in it
Because blacks were acknowledged
And could finally go to college
In white schools
Adhering to the rules
The bigots had always ignored.
And unlike before, the police
Actually kept the peace
Unless it involved demonstrations
Against the crimes of our nation
Against another nation
That never attacked us
Never even threatened us.
These protest made us criminals
And that is what the cops thought of us.

Yes, by the time Nixon was going
After everyone began knowing
What a rat he was and because
He got caught, we saw
Him get on the copter and leave
And without a thought to grieve
We wanted our country to cease
Being some kind of insane police
In an Asian country few of us knew.
To stop what they put our troops through
And bring the people back here
So they could end the killing and fear
That our country was generating.
The debating was through
And the country started anew
By ending that situation.
Peace descended on the nation
And we took credit.
We did do some of it.
Then, we quit.

We started small companies
Selling handmade gifts and soaps
Not becoming the dopes
We fought our parents not to be
But more the people we ought to be
Living in hippie enclaves
That turned into yuppie enclaves
And we got fatter.
But that didn’t matter.
We had our memories
And we had our old war stories
Of marching, and protesting
And they were interesting enough
That we lost the will to be tough
And let the objections slide
And hid inside our mini-farms
And ignored when people were harmed
By many of the same atrocities
That fueled our animosities
Just a generation before.
We decided it was not our war
And sat on our hands.
And drifted like the sands.

The now has left my body.
My mind is emptying
Of all thought of today.
The moment is receding;
I feel my feet lifting
My arms are floating
As if in a pool of light
Like water, buoying me
With untouching caresses
Lofting to evanescence
And I know it is fine
This feeling of pleasance
Of no worries in me
No hurrying to be done
Nowhere I have to be
No reason to run.

I am centered in this,
A feeling of completeness;
Of needing nothing else,
A spiritual sweetness,
A relaxing kind of comfort
Surrounds and enfolds
By singing unheard songs
Deep into my very soul.
I am happy here, smiling,
Somewhere in the self
Where not even I can see,
That I am someone else.
I am someone loving
And kind and caring.
I love this feeling so
I wish I were sharing
The sense of a world
Where everything is right
And everyone is floating
In the same golden light.

I like cussin’
I even researched the word.
It ain’t cussin’
There’s an R that is not heard.
We’re talking of cursing,
The taking of God’s name in vain,
Back when it was blasphemy.
Those days will never come again.

It ain’t the same way
Like it was back in those times
When spitting on the sidewalk
Was a jailing crime
And black people had to walk
Down in the gutter.
There were words back then that
Decent folks didn’t utter.

Well, I ain’t religious.
I don’t go to any church at all.
It ain’t that I am evil;
I’m not riding for some fall.
But there are times
Like when you hammer your thumb
That saying “Oh fudge!”
Sounds just plain old **** dumb.

I am not sending
Anything or anyone here to hell.
It’s just helps
To say hell or **** or fuckaduck
When you have to yell.
A shuckydern don’t fit the bill like
A shouted “****”
When you are *******, raving
Ready to spit.

I totally understand
That some words have a place.
Calling people *******
Can be seen as a huge disgrace.
But I still insist
That many times in a conversation
The word *******
Just fits the momentary occasion.

So, scoff if you will.
I’ll try to play by your nicey-nice rules,
But there are people
What are nothing but ******* fools.
I do hope you pardon
My not liking any more pleasant words
When someone says
The dumbest **** I have ever heard

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
He’s just what you found perfect
As long as he was in bed.
It turns out every time, the romance
It is all inside your head.

Even though he knows you’re hurting
He can’t do a thing
You really should have known this
When you saw his ring.

Even in the deep heat of summer
You’re out in the cold.
It isn’t like it never happened before
This story is old.

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
You think of you and him as a couple
That can never be
He has lied to her, why not to you?
This is your reality.

Maybe you decided this is better than
Being all alone.
What you think is love for you is like
The Twilight Zone.
He has a life without you and you knew
There was no ‘us’ or ‘we’.
You’re always the villain, homewrecker;
Innocence is but a memory.

You tell yourself each time he leaves
That is it, no more.
Then change your mind by the time
He closes the door.
Regret for what you do to his life
Is not your problem.
Like me, she has to learn the punches
And learn to roll with them.

You must be understanding
Of his demons
You’re never going to see him
On the weekends.
He’s just what you found perfect
As long as he was in bed.
It turns out every time, the romance
It is all inside your head.

It seems I’ve always been dyslexic
But, I really didn’t know.
I just discovered this about myself
About a year ago.
It was a matter of some bedevilment
To deal with left and right
Up and down, on and off, and more
Excepting day and night.

Opposites like yes or no, black or white,
Were never easy or fun.
Then the days of computers came along
With their trials of zero and one.
It’s a basic lack of understanding things
At a minimal kind of level.
It always seemed I was forever lost
Between the sea and the devil.

I began to realize how deep the effect
Ran within my learning curve.
It was more than just a simple matter
Of which way I would swerve
When riding a bike or driving a car;
I could never drive in Kent.
I would invariably choose the wrong way
When the road was forked or bent.

I don’t take any of this in any light way,
It helps me to understand
Having problems in my studies long ago,
To piece together strand by strand
The insults and the teasing I underwent
When I made the wrong choices.
I can now put to rest my sense of doubt
That stems from chiding voices.

It was such a subtle thing, and back then,
In the methods of long ago,
The parents and the teachers muddled on
Because they really didn’t know
That many of us were not ignoramuses
We just had an uphill fight
We had a dilemma in equal opposites
Like in and out or left and right.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for
I want to waste no time in *******’.
I may not drive a fancy car
I have no mansion to be rich in.
But I got fingers
And I got toes
And sometimes that’s
Just the way it goes.
I wake up in the morning
And jump out of bed,
And just be thankful
That I’m not dead.

I’ve got clothes on my back
And shoes on my feet.
A place to lay my head
And enough food to eat.
There’s plenty in my life
For which I am grateful.
And absolutely no reason
For me to feel hateful.

I see a lot of people now
Gripe about what they want.
I’m sure when they’re dead
They’ll want a better house to haunt.
It seems they waste their time
And they fail to appreciate
The hundred times a day
What they have is truly great.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for
I want to waste no time in *******’.
I may not drive a fancy car
I have no mansion to be rich in.
But I got fingers
And I got toes
And sometimes that’s
Just the way it goes.
I wake up in the morning
And jump out of bed,
And just be thankful
That I’m not dead.

Mama didn’t know
Our Daddy could dance.
He kept it a secret
In the name of romance.
We knew he could sing,
He did it every day
How could we know
He could dance that way?

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

Daddy loved his music
But didn’t like to go out.
Mama loved to go to dances
But she never liked to pout.
She just suffered in silence
And danced in all alone
In the kitchen by herself
In her own jazzy zone.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

The radio would come on
And Mama began to wiggle.
Dad sat and read his paper
But, he would quietly giggle.
Mama would take his hand
Try to get him to get up.
He’d just shake his head no
Go back to his coffee cup.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!

Then their anniversary came
And we could tell Daddy didn’t
Have any idea what he
Could give her as a present.
So, he got them all dressed
And took her out to on the town
And surprised our Mama good
When he boogied her around.

Go on and dance, Daddy dance!
Who knew he had rhythm?
Daddy had him some moves
And Mama go dance with him!