By the time I got to Woodstock, I was pushing Sixty-five.
I was qualified for Medicare when I finally arrived.
All the famous bands that played there, by and large, they are no more.
You can hear them still on vinyl; just not at the record store.
It was mud and drunken nakedness in the summer of sixty-nine.
There were ******-active drugs too if you were so inclined.
All the gorgeous girls who made that scene back in Love’s own summer,
Now use Clairol to hide the gray and are somebody’s Grandmother.
And what about the tall lean dudes who lusted for them then?
They now rely on small blue pills to get it up again.
Imagine standing on that stage staring out at the tie-dyed throng
as Janice Joplin poured her heart and soul out in a song.
I hear Hendrix was electric even as the skies did pour.
And Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young were up for an encore.
Lennon couldn’t make it and Jethro Tull declined.
Joan Baez was magical; Joni Mitchell would have cried.
They are but ghostly echoes now, playing to an empty field.
We were all once young and beautiful, and Love was true and real.
Still, Time is a heartless arrow, relentless now as then.
I only fooled myself to think I could go back again.

Keep the torch alive to pass to a new generation with the key that unlocks the road to the future follow your passion the unemployment will follow we’ve been through some amazing times together make a difference to thine own self be true commencement means a beginning not an ending as we go forth life is a journey not a destination we made it all the hard work we’ve put forth to this point in time these are the best time in our lives as one door closes another door opens because a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step to make the world a better place trust your instincts you don’t find education in books we are the future bright with promise some see the future and ask why but we see the future and ask why not Habakkuk 2:7 we did it I can’t believe we’re here believe in yourself live your dreams to be all that you can be God has a plan for you we have the responsibility to build a new world if opportunity doesn’t knock build a door don’t follow the path blaze a trail because there is no one like you because you are an individual just like those other hundred or so people your age and dressed just alike because life is what happens while you’re making plans live, laugh, love you have to look through the rain to see the rainbow dance like nobody’s looking (even though they are, and they’re laughing at you, not with you) aim for the moon and if you miss you’ll hit the moon (or something) life is not waiting for the storm to pass it’s about dancing in the rain because you are a new generation called to miss 100% of the shots you don’t take because we were all one big family who have lived, laughed, and loved together hey and remember the time (name) barfed on the stairs we’ll all have that shared moment to remember together we can’t save all the starfish but I can make a difference for this one because as a great man Robert Frost said in “The Road Not Taken” we can make a difference for all the starfish in the sea of life today is the first day of your rest of your life oh, the places you’ll go like maybe eternal stasis in front of a smartphone I don’t know why they asked me to be the speaker shout-out to Mom wear sunscreen because your future’s so bright close your eyes and remember when hey, an air horn, that’s so cool, no one’s ever done that before woo-hoo I want to congratulate each of your on your incredible talents and abilities as you begin your journey to a bright and shining future because we are the best class (name of school and a shout-out to the mascot)) has ever graduated (since last year) a dream is a wish your heart makes and you can become anything you dream to be or wish to be or something #lifehack #hashtag now go forth and make your lives exceptional although on Monday morning we’ll wake up and realize we’re just some more unemployed Americans.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed…”

                                       -Allen Ginsberg


No. He didn’t.

He helped mediocrities self-destruct
Through formless howlings in their lonely minds
He pushed them to their deaths with obscene smirks
No more connected than foul faeces flung

Against the good, the beautiful, the true
He pitied himself, and called it rebellion
He squealed out his pimply scatologies
He destroyed the weaklings he could have helped

The best minds of his generation pitied him
But kept their children far away from it

Saint John 8: 1-11

It is the topic of many homilies:
What was Jesus writing in the dust there
At the feet of the woman those men didn’t like?
Possibly he was writing to you and me:

“I know what you do when no one’s watching.”

Or

“I know what you say in self-deception.”

Or

“I know what you think when you are silent.”

Or

“I’m going to fry your *ss if you hurt my child.”

And then there is this other mystery:
Why was there dust in the Temple, anyway?

William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616
How can my Muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every ****** paper to rehearse?
O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thyself dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
If my slight Muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

My Poem - R.I.P. Main man.
How can I find inspiration, when your eyes
reside in my mind,
renovating my headspace.
No beauty could surpass your being,
clouding the cosmos,
searching the clouds of my soul,
For something to
relocate my focus.
As if you would ever read my musings, written upon unworthy wood pulp
But you, perfect, living forever
less perfect and untouchable in my ******
and immature words,
wishing they could be as flawless.
Let my pain go unnoticed,
for your ultimate beautiful,
immortality.

If I ever said I revel in darkness,
I misspoke.
If I ever sang the praises of dusk,
I was mistaken.

Because it’s not the dark I enjoy,
nor is it the night I adore.
I realize that now.

It’s the contrast
—the beauty—
of the specks of light
shining through the black sky,
the heroes who are not fazed by the sunset.
I realize that now.

I realize that now, on a cloudy night.

Objection, your Honor!
On behalf of the accused,
I demand that this excessively
    harsh sentence be reduced!

Beside that, Your Honor
Can judgement be dispensed
Behind the subject’s back
    and without hearing his defense?

Moreover, Your Honor
Is this what you call fair?
To destroy, with zero evidence
    a man and his career?

But answer me, Your Honor
—Though I highly doubt you can—
Who gave you the authority
    to judge your fellow man?

As one of the blue-jacketed workers
As a defiant student
As a child of poverty
Who never had a bicycle to ride to the Sorbonne

I repudiate your vivid red flags
And your graduate-school keyboard revolution
And your catalogue of cliches’ and cant
And your crawling housefly symbolism

As one of the blue-jacketet workers
As a defiant student
After an all-night shift in the plastics factory
I like my cuppa Earl Grey tea in my bleeding hands

Someday I’ll have a bourgeois balcony
And from it look down on your stereotypes