Looking Back 1963-1976

I’ve often thought that all the time

We spent, in spending wasted all,

And lost the chance to spend our dreams

The way our dreams would seem, to fall

Against ourselves, against us all.

 

Our dreams were hopes for all the world

When John was murdered, in some dim

November, dim remembered in

The way the world bleeds, at the rim

Of rank misfortune, suffering.

 

And in the silence of our hearts

There burned a flame that roared and purged

Our fathers of their fathers sins,

And freed us of our fear, the dirge

Of death was spent in one last surge

 

Of madness, on some Asian track

Where death and drugs stalked, white and black

And hate were all sequestered there,

The festering sore of all, we were

Determined not to take it back.

 

Meanwhile the 'yeah yeah' years were just

The outward signs of search among

The minds they drugged from discontent

With all the jingles that they lent, while truth

Was only sung in songs

 

Of Beatles, and with Beatles came

Fresh hope, long hair, the boy next door

Myth, making it, in making it your

Dreams were dreams for taking, or for

Breaking all that went before.

 

Sweet songs, beat songs, love songs were all

From you to us, and when you sang

‘She Loves You’, we believed the score

And married ‘til the altars rang .....

Where now the love songs that you sang?

 

And though we all believed we had

The world wrapped up, the system beat,

The system jived to what we thought was

Our new dream, but all we’d bought were

Variations on some theme.

 

We fought, by God we fought I well

Remember, when the flower folk were

Peddling love at hatred’s door, in

Hashbury, Haight-Ashbury where

The flowers were crushed and cast ashore.

 

But times they were a’changing were

Our poet prophets promised us a

Share in worlds new-cast in flame.

Our only share was all we spent

In keeping poet profits there.

 

Still we persevered, we left the

Cities for the virgin soil our part

Would be the starlit night, our art

Would be the fading light, bleak

Landscapes be our chosen toil.

 

In final desperation we have

Even resurrected Jesus time

And time again. But who can pay

The price; six dollars, just for Jesus,

Lights, and all the cast, performed on ice.

 

If, my children, we have failed, at

Least we failed! The hopes we held

Were never lost, or tossed aside, or sold

To thieves… We failed because the years

Dismayed, and burned the pages of our creed.

 

David Lewis Paget

 

1976

Reviews

[Marie]

This is more inspiring than it is despairing. We do move on. Though hope wanes and enthusiasm dies, yet the dream remains...the echo of what was...