Remembering High School

Remembering High School

We asked for birth control

they gave us crowd control.

We blew their minds

rewrote the rules

retraced the chalk lines

FAR the FUCK OUT

Can you dig it?

We grew up with Nixon, Tricky Dick

Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice

We explored our feelings, ignored curfews

experimented with drugs, sex, rock and roll

So sure

we could change the world

hanging out

in our string bikinis

down by the town pool

drenched in vinegar and baby oil

SO RED,

SO BROWN,

SO COOL.

Here’s to

hanging out  on the wall

in front the High School

checking it out

as streakers flashed by

as red necks chased queers for fun

to draftees sent to `Nam with a gun

from the hippie that dodged to Canada and split

to the trailer trash DICK– screwing jail-bait chicks

naïve chicks

that bought the white picket lie

and snatched a rotten slice

of  the American pie.

Here’s to Peace

the Beatles, the Rolling Stones

the fuel rationing in ‘73

the boy who stole our heart in September

the one they drafted in November

when we were so groovy, gullible.

 

Here’s to the good old days

chilling at THE WELL

the local dive

where we danced past two with Three Dog Night

and got over on the old man and old lady

MAN– they were SO UPTIGHT!

 

Here’s to

forging excuses

detention with good old Mr. C.

Here’s to cold dead frogs best not inhaled

but if you must

only after the LSD and beer keg chaser.

 

Here’s to

smoking Marlboro red

inhaling

Pizza and Diet Coke

Hamburgers and Diet Coke

Chili-dogs and Diet Coke

 

Here’s to cold

white-faced corpses

sixteen and seventeen

on the DRUNK and HIGH-way to graduation

from FUCKING HIGH SCHOOL.

Here’s to

Dream on

Sock it to me

Black Panther pride

In Your Face

Mood rings

New York East Side

Here’s to

belly buttons, bell bottoms

and gold pierced lobes

two-inch heels,

 

and that was the guys,

 

banana seats

and hip-hugging roads

miles and miles

of tall dense pine

poking

through third eye mind

learning to deal, as life unwinds.

 

Flash forward

here we are

in our fifties

fighting

our bulging hips and waistlines

thinning hair lines

CANCER

Finding Jesus

poking

through the dumpster

high on Crystal Meth

fresh out of FISH and FOLLOWERS.

Now I ask you, is this expanding your consciousness?

Because If it is

I want to roll over and consider

the psychedelic spider web in my brain

or better yet

the really huge one

on top of the kitchen cabinet.

Reconsider the pros and cons

the gravity of my CHOICES

explore my inner Zen voice, some more.

So I’m asking JESUS,

what’s it all about

tell it to me straight, I can handle it!

B.T.W. Man, are you done bogarting that joint?

I’m just saying…

Our Route 66, our Highway to Heaven, our Good Times

our COOL, our COPACETIC, our CRAZY

we DID define!

Can you dig it?