Before the Walls Tumbled Down(Haight-Ashbury Pipe Dreams)

 

 

Before the walls tumbled down

and the wolves ate what was left

and every hippie on Haight-Ashbury

smoked it from the ground up,

 

Before the piece pipe ran out

And the junky who forgot the spiritual

Forget the bohemians and rocket queens

Whose spirituals burned smoke circles

Towards the skies

 

Forget Timothy Leary

As I am sure he forgot too

that such an answer

didn’t compensate for ten, twenty years gone

 

The Lizard King wailed on the funeral drum

And yes the ancients might have drummed back

But the crazy wilderness is still empty of gods

And the bottle crooned its last tune

 

You could still see the neck of the bottle too,

Silhouetted in the lyrics of some anonymous author

Conjuring with his poetics

The summoning of the Dream Queen

 

We heard it on the radio

Watched it on T.V

Read it in books

And heard about it in school

 

And I remember my time

When the walls came tumbling down,

Reading Kerouac

Smoking reefer with my left

drinking vodka on my right

 

I had no hands left to cuff the pen,

No rationale to back my words

No evidence of any walls,

But We all agreed

Some stump in the road

Obstructed our progress

 

Oh, and I forgot about the wolves

That ate what was left,

Subsequent generations, the knowledge carrying forward

That hairy beast,

Themes you often here about from The Romantics,

No Symbol poised on its own, it wasn’t even a metaphor

I admit it…I ate it all up

 

 

Reviews

[Blackbirdsong]

This is really a great poem and you evoke so much about the past and the ideals of that lost generation. I remember hearing people talk about the establishment and being free which of course included arm loads of drugs and irresponsibility. Of course ironically many of those people did in fact become part of the establishment and all of their ideals were thrown off like so much dross. I like how you use some references from that time in your poem. One thing it's "peace" pipe and actually Natives just call it a pipe, but I know non-Natives would be confused by just calling it that. :) I like you insert yourself here as part of the mix with your vodka in one hand in drugs in another, without another hand to hold the pen. That was really a brilliant bit of writing. It's good to be reading you again.