#sixties
At work one day a guy wrote in looking for Clearance
I was answering his email but I misspelled the word Clearance
I put down Clarence instead
Then I twigged it
"Wait a minute, that's not Clearance that's... that's Clarence"
And then I remembered...remembered back
Clarence, Clarence was the cross eyed lion in Daktari
The children's TV series we used to watch in the sixties
About an animal hospital in Africa
There was Clarence and there was a monkey, yea! a mischievous little chimpanzee monkey
She was always getting into trouble
Judy yea!, Judy was the monkey's name
The animal hospital was run by a Doctor Tracy and he had a lovely...pretty daughter named Paula ...yea! Paula...
Now I work with a girl named Paula, she's around the same age as me, another child of the sixties
I thought y'know I bet that's where Paula got her name from
Her parents were watching Daktari and said "That Paula's a lovely girl and what a pretty name
Why don't we call our baby Paula"
Then I thought 'She's lucky they didn't call her Judy after the monkey".
Apr 3
Apr 3, 2026 at 9:05 PM UTC
~~~^♡^
black light posters
lava lamps
purple haze
and mega amps
bright **** rugs
in pink and green
long straight hair
or Afro-Sheen
go ask Alice
how time flies
starships blast off
In her eyes
mini-skirt
hair down̈ long,
pink glasses
youths are high,
will skip their classes
yellow ribbons
in her hair
Vietnam
Scarborough Fair
beaded curtain
leather and lace
morals gone
Without a trace
Mother Mary
let it be
flower power
love for free
you can find
a cause to mend
but it's hard
to find a friend
psychedelic
music blasts
what was "groovy"
now the past
soulsurvivor
5/10/2015
~~~^♡^
Apr 25, 2025
Apr 25, 2025 at 4:54 AM UTC
Red and white dotted fabric.
I spin around in my chic new dress.
My husband kisses me goodbye.
I iron out the clothes.
Stitch.
Sew.
Cut.
Pull.
Warm, homecooked meals.
We dine as a tune from our youth plays on the radio.
He places a rose on my empty plate.
I smile.
Thimbles coat my fingers.
I stick pins in fabric and sew it up together.
I feel a thud in my stomach.
I iron out the clothes.
He welcomes me home with gifts.
My baby boy is fast asleep.
My husband is slowly coming home later and later.
He hasn't noticed the holes in my arm.
I drink another shot, smiling at my sleepy baby boy.
My husband isn't home.
I pop my pills.
And I iron out the clothes.
The medicine isn't working anymore.
I can't stop his screaming.
Shut up.
Shut that child up.
My husband is yelling at me.
What did I do wrong?
He tears my new dress.
I iron out the clothes.
My baby won't stop crying.
Stop, please.
My husband is never home.
My head hurts.
I throw the pills down the drain.
I shakily brandish a knife.
I breathe.
And iron out the clothes.
Crimson splattered across walls.
An old tune from our youth plays on the radio.
My husband isn't breathing.
My baby boy stopped crying.
I feed my child and put him to sleep.
I sleep.
I spin around in my green and white polka dotted dress.
The fabric tearing at the seams.
I iron out the clothes.
The fabric.
The rope.
I leave a rose next to my child and stand up.
This necklace fits perfectly.
I take a bow in front of the mirror.
Don't I look pretty?
I kick the furniture.
Dancing midair.
My hair falls to my face.
I iron out the
Dec 16, 2017
Dec 16, 2017 at 2:33 PM UTC
It was supposed to be
The dawn of a new age;
A new set of dialogue
On a more balanced stage
With better lines for
The actors to deliver.
It was supposed to start in
The sixties and last forever.
We didn’t really know for sure
What this Aquarius stuff was
But it seemed to us to be
A metaphysical enough cause,
To change the way we acted
And to shout down the rest;
To face the demagogues
Then put them to the test.
We stopped wearing uniforms
That said we went along
With the hard-assed leaders.
We put a lot of it in our songs.
We called them what they were
Greedy warmongering ******
We protested and picketed
And promised so much more.
We spoke out loudly on TV
And in crowds in the streets
That we were through will genocide
And would not accept defeat.
We cried out that our government
Had assumed the role of villain
And was murdering for no reason
Not just men, but even children.
But, we let it all die down;
We let the government slide
On investigating the truth
And keeping the truth inside
A carefully chosen batch of
Criminals in public office.
We let them go on making war
And making money off us.
We let them cheat and lie
And re-write acceptable laws
To support their bloodthirstiness
And we gave up on our cause.
Maybe all that protesting gave
All our marching feet limps.
Or maybe it’s because all along
We were just a bunch of wimps.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC
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.
Sep 6, 2015
Sep 6, 2015 at 12:26 AM UTC
I had hair, lots of it,
And wire rim glasses,
Bells, sandals
And elephant pants
With the Libra sign embroidered
On the back right pocket.
We wore leather wrist bands,
Listened to the cool music,
Knew all the Beatles' lyrics,
Dylan and Snow too.
We never wore peace signs,
Not after seeing Sammy Davis Jr.'s
Pendulous medallion.
We were trenders,
But that wasn't a term then.
Neither was sexagenarian.
Aug 22, 2015
Aug 22, 2015 at 8:41 AM UTC
~~~^♡^
black light posters
lava lamps
purple haze
and mega amps
bright **** rugs
in pink and green
long straight hair
or Afro-Sheen
go ask Alice
how time flies
starships blast off
In her eyes
yellow ribbons
in her hair
Vietnam
Scarborough Fair
beaded curtain
leather n lace
brains are gone
without a trace
Mother Mary
let it be
flower power
love for free
you can find
a cause to bend
but it's hard
to find a friend
psychedelic
music blasts
what was "groovy"
now the past
soulsurvivor
5/10/2015
~~~^♡^
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
the hippie life:
**** and acid;
the blues life:
****** and whiskey.
one a party,
the other
a funeral.
good times,
bad times,
but oh,
what
a Time.
~mce
Apr 8, 2015
Apr 8, 2015 at 8:43 AM UTC