BORN TO BE WILD

Listenin’ to the music, diggin’ the vibes

Rememberin’, groovin’; missing my tribe

The music’s now old, dated, relegated

To the “Classics’ section. How can I describe

The ‘now-ness”, the immediacy of the music

has; immortality in action: some live some 

Have died; they are missed; I might have cried

Or stared in stunned silence, shocked and frightened

Another piece of the puzzle slips away, ne’er to be replaced

I become tempted as the decades pass to say it never happened

The people I met, know, loved, or hated; present or deceased

They remain eternally in my mind

The Vietnam war! So long, so bloody, some would say inept

Not my department, no comment. Stop the bloody war!

It galvanized a generation; created a seismic shift in our awareness

Were we bedazzled with all that optimism for the future

So bright, so vibrant? Now broken and displaced on the altar

Of conservatism; the opposite of all we struggled for, died for

Spent our lives creating? Conservatism is set in rock. No!

I don’t mean rock’n’roll. Unfortunate proximity of similar terms

Homophones? Sir, I am shocked! Such language

Rock as in stone, mountains, and ravines; hard, unyielding

Resistant to change. Their internal narrative is set to the one station

Looping, looping; maybe that’s why they’re called “loopy”

Born to be wild? Yes sir; as far as my aging body allows me

I’m out there, riding wild and free (watch out for my bung knee)

In my head it’s all on; bring it on, brother Steppenwolf

(thought: that’s a title of a book isn’t it?) Make a note

Ask the librarian. Yes, I can still read.

That music; has re-awakened me

Born to be wild

The words have musicality