Ballad of the College Kids
The college kids were gathered around
Listening to the latest stereophonic sounds
Speakers booming their tunes and melodies
Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Doors and Bee Gees
Sweet scent of cheap hemp filled the air
It was Friday night, nobody cared
'bout quizzes, tests, exams or papers
The night was young: time for drug-fueled capers
Where to go? What to do? Gotta move! Gotta be--
Where the action is! Where it's happenin,' man!
On the prowl for a quickie, for a one-night stand
At anonymous bars, dens of debauchery
They moved in packs of conformist thought
Jocks or thespians, wimps or nerds
Frat-boys or hippies -- bearded, hirsute, absurd --
Stoned or drunk, immorality they sought
When in walked a man who silenced that den
Five stripes on his sleeve, a steel slab for a chin
He stared hard at them; they shrank from him
A general's general, on loan from Vietnam
He smelled the cheap hemp and the two-bit beer
Muttered an imprecation: "I'm out of here."
Then he pointed at those trembling college pickins:
"You're as weak as kittens, as yellow as chickens ...
If you want to grow up; if real men you'd like to be
~ Come fight for your country in the jungles of 'Nam with me."
Copyright © Gershon Wolf | Year Posted 2018
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