--- for my daughter Caitlin, who although
a generation removed, still feels it.
I ramble down
the broken highway
of remembrances
feel the essence of my soul dripping
in dewy sweetness
from a frond
of youthful fraternity.
Ah brothers and sisters of by gone days,
euphorically laughing under
the protective umbrella
of non political rain
and the cascading jubilation
of crescent moon
reveries.
Sitting inside a monastery of pot induced music
on cold winter nights,
much conversation,
hallowed adventures on the outer precipice
of wild open mind,
sharing in the ecstatic explosion
of heartfelt experience
when nothing could miscolour
the vision.
I remember hand made tea ceremonies
beneath a backyard of stars,
contemplations on Taoist rhetoric,
the pull of the road
and sunburnt thumbs,
the benevolent whisper of a sage
who imparted his ancient wisdom
into our hungry ears
from the many corners
of the globe.
And there was no need to blaspheme
the archaic and artificial
associations of the past
because they were meaningless
and held nothing substantial
inside the raw and opening flowers
of our brains.
But there were also
the black and white images turned red
on television screens
from the horror fields of Vietnam,
also the dull ache of assassination,
the reality that even peaceful anarchy
can be subdued via university bullets,
the madness of tear gas
or the terrified bludgeon
in a police man’s hand.
And tonight as I relive it once again,
I am reminded that we actually believed
that all we needed was Lennon’s mantra
on the essence
of LOVE.
Author notes
All You Need Is LOve
A contest entry
- Beatles. by Emmyb.
900 points, ended April 13, 11 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
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In '64 my folks said:" the Beatles are just a fad, in a year you'll never hear of them again!"
...well the beatle-cut and the boots and the twist are gone
the naivté of the psychodelic revolution has evaporated
John and George are gone!
But the music is still there!
And for all the world's hard-boiled cynicism...deep down everyone KNOWS:"All you need is love!"
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Incredible!
From Mark to Marc,
great job!
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goodnes
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The times were so full and rich, and the change that cut through the past and set us free to pursue our fates was the music. I haven't seen the movie but I was there for the original.
I still don't know what it was we lacked - not courage, not endurance, not dedication. I'll always wonder, as I am always looking to the youth of now, to see how they pick up the torch.
Great poem, thoughtful and engaged.
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Marc, I cannot tell you how deeply I've been influenced my the music of this spirit who came to stay with us for a while...as are my children.
I remember the night the world cried for one man.
Your work is as incrediable as some of this thoughts.
Bravo!
Marianne
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Marianne, I loved the man and the poet . . . Sometimes I feel that a part of me died on that fateful December night in 1980 . . .
Marc
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I had to rant an essay in response ....
Marc, this is essential, elegiac writing. Your recollections erupted in my mind ( a mind that time has sought to tame - but still prefers to leave its door unlocked – how wild is that!) - hanging a gallery of restored, kaleidoscopic images about the restraining walls of these times. Your images are poignant but tempered with a comforting rage that leads us to the wire, demanding once more that we break on through to the other side. The romance in your thoughts successfully veers away from whimsy and neither does your wisdom overpower the innocence of the dream, rather it recreates it. The smell of a love fuelled revolution is surely mixing with the breezy air that carries the scent of the Sunday roast.
Undoubtedly, there were enormous differences between the similarities of the 60's and today - a musical and poetical revolution led into mainstream periphery by Bob Dylan in the early 60's, internationally popularised by post '65 Beatles and many other hallucinations; US Army draft-fighting bonded people, poets and thinkers together in protests that were willing to bleed for peace (and often did); TV – this too was mainstream, conservative and unable to sustain teenagers with the type of dumbed down, indoctrinating bullshit currently deluding legions of hamburger and beer riddled youth – but it brought the reality of brutality into our homes and filled hearts and minds with reaction. Despite the differences in circumstance, the similarities of situations are no less real today, but media has nailed words of depth and freedom onto a dark wall in one damp corner of an unknown, underground basement. Underground. Perhaps the first circle of revolution is complete. I sense in cyber connections that we are re-assessing the things we lost and learned along the way. We are in a new underground from which new leaders will emerge when their time is right – but the time will never be right unless people learn how to talk again. Coffee shops breeding poetic coincidences during the 50’s and 60’s were tangible multi-dimensional events. Your poem, this poem, could be discussed, expanded, derided and revered – but there was always the possibility that it could drag out the bedraggled souls of others and inspire them on into the fray. Exchanging poems and comments via a website opens up wider possibilities of communication but ignores those fundamentals. Even now, writing this, I venture on into rambling, semi-ranting soliloquy that will merely fall into a black hole once a button is pressed – what I say here is nothing without interaction and discussion. I yearn that youthful, freer-spirits will agree to meet in the underground, that they will come together and lead on into the next cycle of light. Recession and worse coming to spit in the face of 3 decades of materialist distractions may well be the catalyst we have been waiting for. Bring out your Kerouacs, deliver your Dylans – for fuck’s sake say something that makes me disagree with you and then talk me round!
Calming down now (as the Sunday roast permeates), I really do hope that one day our spirits will be called to the great monastery in the sky where we may engage with the souls of all the departed prophets, seers and sages – to talk and learn forever against a backdrop of perfect light and music and be allowd to drip-feed some nuggets down into earthly sunsets (!). Until then, please continue to release your words into this trickling stream. You never know, they just may help to form a river.
K
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Kezz . . . your response to this simple little poem is quite overwelming I must say!!! Funny how those of us that lived during those tumultuous, but enlightening years are somehow forever bonded like an invisible brother or sister hood of the spirit . . .
Marc
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The day I was born the number one song on the charts was "All You Need is Love" and I still believe it.
Beautiful poem...thank you for reminding us with your special gift of presence that love is so important.
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Words are flowing out...
As I die-hard Beatles fan, and someone who really appreciates three-dimensional character and a good plot, I was extremely ambivalent about the movie (most of the songs were so good; but the rest was so bad)...
...but your poem was about 100 times better than the movie that inspired it. You used great imagery and phrasing, and there is no doubt that the era meant something to you. I can only wish I lived in the 60s, but you could've taught the makers of 'Universe' a lesson.
-CJ
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Sorry that the movie had little impact on you . . . Yes I did live it and to the fullest, perhaps too much so, because whenever I watch that movie it causes my nostalgic eyes to mist up . . . Your comments are much appreciated . . .
Marc
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Oh I know it was about Lennon but it had Bono in it, sorry if I didn't see past that bit LMAO.
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Cheryl . . . You gotta see this flic . . . it isn't about Lennon or the Beatles, but about the times that were a changing. I myself, found it very moving, felt like I was reliving my youth in some sad nostalgic way AND BONO IS PRICELESS!!!!!!
Marc
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