P.
O. Box 856
1286
County Road 400
Kirbyville,
Texas 75956
Mhall46184@aol.com
Paleo-Hippies
Having
withdrawn from the existential struggle,
Surrendering
their arms and protest signs,
They
muster in Denny’s for the Senior Special
Uniformed
in knee-pants and baseball caps
And
Chinese tees that read “World’s Greatest Grandpa,”
Hearing
aids and trifocs at parade rest,
And
quadrupedal aluminum sticks
Raging
against the oxygen machine.
Not
trusting anyone over ninety,
They
rattle their coffee cups and dentures
Instead
of suspicious Nixonians,
And
demand pensions, not revolution.
They
mourn classmates dead, not The Grateful Dead.
They
do not burn their Medicare cards
Tho’
once they illuminated the world
With
their flaming conscription notices.
They
no longer read McKuen or Tolkien
Or
groove to the Mamas and the Papas;
Their
beads and flowers are forever filed
In
books of antique curiosities
Beside
a butterfly collection shelved
In
an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where
manifestos go to be eaten
By
busy mice and slow-pulsing fungi.
As
darkness falls they make the Wheel,
not peace -
They
did not change the world, not at all, but
The
world changed anyway, and without them,
And
in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor
Siddhartha, but only cable t.v.
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