Best 1970 Poems
I am Farrah Fawcett,
Poster on the wall.
I am a rotary phone,
When I made a call.
I am, Boss,
it’s the plane, The plane.
I am Pablo Escobar,
And his cocaine.
I am Queen with
Freddy Mercury Live.
I am the Bee Gees,
Talking that Jive.
I am vinyl, 8-tracks,
cassettes and CDs.
I am, make love not war,
And Hippies.
I am where is the beef?
Don't squeeze the Charmin.
I am Cheech and Chong
and George Carlin.
I am SNL when it
Was funny.
I am Happy Days,
And a Playboy bunny.
I am M.A.S.H. and
A metal Lunch-box.
I am clackers, tang,
And a Pet-rock.
I am American Bandstand,
Peace signs, and the twist.
I am pay-phones, pagers,
and stick-shifts.
I am, conjunction junction,
What's your function?
I am Patty Hearst and
Her abduction.
Turbo1904
There ain’t no two ways about it man,
it just has to be because of you.
Before you came along we could do,
about anything we wanted to.
Man, life was great, life was great, before,
you came along and ruined it all.
There’s Haight-Ashbury’s summer of love,
Newport, Altamont, and Monterey.
And then we hit the road to Woodstock,
and let me tell you man, that was great.
We had free love, drugs, and miniskirts,
we were sure having ourselves a ball.
The Beatles really started smoking,
after Bob Dylan showed them the way.
Next came The Stones, The Doors, and Simon,
with Joplin, Hendrix, and Marvin Gaye.
All of the men burned up their draft cards,
and all the women took off their bra.
There were sit-ins and all-night love fests,
Feminine Mystique, I Have a Dream.
The Hippies knew the right way to live,
there was no end to the fun it seemed.
Black, white, red, brown, pink, purple, or green,
were brothers and sisters one and all.
We had sex, drugs, and hard Rock-n-Roll,
and wore some wildflowers in our hair.
Even left our tracks upon the moon,
man, we could do anything we dared.
Man, life was great, life was great, before,
you came along and ruined it all.
Things might still be a little fuzzy
But that’s how it happened as I recall.
Some of you, will in memory, may fondly recall.
Enchanting, colored dance floors, you all had a ball!
When women still wore stunning, gorgeous dresses,
Unafraid to wear makeup, and sport long, shiny tresses.
No, you were not vaping or drugging it up, to be cool.
You did not want to be a stoner or be the town fool,
Youeven wore pricey perfume, just to reel in a mate,
Some tall dude, with agility to dance, was to be your fate.
It was kismet, the moment you stared in a dance partner’s eyes.
You both as if floating, on air, in amorous,cloud like disguise
The lit, multi-colored dance floor, The Bee Gees music filled the room.
You looked up, and there your shiny prince stood~love musically! in bloom!
3/29/2024
23 may 2013 8:36 am
Mathew Herman Vain
A child who had no name
Was killed before he was born
His cell from his kidneys was torn
Cloned and named HEK293
Those cells they use to satisfy you and me
They use it in processes to make vaccines
And process for artificial flavors obscene
He had no name as from his mother he was torn
And until now has not been officially mourned
I gave him his name so all will remember
This was a real child that science dismembered
So people can be vain
And glutony can rein
Drifting, my excellence
Blonde air-line.
Comme ce comme sais.
Bungalow Bang
Leave my space. Richard Gere in my car.
Space-Fraud
Sickening Mercedes Benz
Woah- woah. That is.
Plastic Coke
Metal Cork. Colour the Heinz.
Lovely 1980 arrives
The Girls in Steno, 1970
When it’s break time
the girls all walk together,
cigarette-protector cases
clasped between their index
tapers and their thumbs.
On each girl’s fingers glow
iridescent lacquers.
When break time nears,
they peek at each other,
twinkle, giggle, nod.
When break time comes,
a bell rings and the girls rise
like Lazarus. High on heels
they click in couples down the hall
to fill an elevator.
They get off at One. There
they float across the cafeteria,
men everywhere,
eyes everywhere.
(Is he the one?)
When a new girl’s hired
the old girls
put her to the test:
Will she join them
for the coffee break?
If she does, she joins them forever,
even after she marries,
retires or expires.
Donal Mahoney
We all had homemade dresses for prom; well, nearly all of us.
This was back in 1970 while black and white Viet Nam War photos were on TV
Every night, we saw such sadness.
Prom was a reminder of childhood.
Back to the Bibbity Bobbity Boo of Cinderella.
We girls were wearing empire waist dresses.
It was the style, little bows at the top of our hair.
We were fancy poodles, primping in our two inch heels.
Not high ones like our mothers. We had already fallen off those.
Traded in our hip hugger bell bottoms that magical night
For dresses in chiffon, polished cotton, and satins.
We were so shiny, it is a miracle a murder of crows did not carry us off.
The boys had on their best suits; not tuxes.
We were in a small Iowa farm town.
Many of the couples would marry two weeks later after graduation.
I remember how hard the junior class worked to make it beautiful for us.
There were tin foil stars and crepe paper streamers everywhere.
A strobe light, and music piped in from the folk heroes of the time.
Peter Paul and Mary, Mama Cass, Simon and Garfunkel.
Sometimes a song by Cher or Bette Midler but not as often.
The food was fantastic. The company wonderful.
Our first semi-formal dinner. I have never forgotten it.
In one way it was like middle school which we called junior high.
The boys stood around talking and laughing, and the girls danced like mad.
It was such an innocent and fun time! Taking the Viet Nam War,
And the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King
Out of our minds for one magical bibbity bobbity boo night.
May 1970. A memory that uplifts me to this day.
The last time I spoke to some of my classmates.
As a few were sent to Viet Nam after graduation never to return.
Attributed To Concerned parents
of Traumatized Refugee
Dear Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump...
Posthumous belated tattered letter fragment
recently discovered (liberally sprinkled with
hyperbole (presumed for greater audacious
zealousness), sans accidentally acquired
by yours truly.
Miscellaneous personal item highly valued
when thwarted from auctioneer, whose gently
persuasion collectible merchandise requisitioned,
thence keepsake property perfunctory mandatorily forfeited.
Due compensation from sole male heir (me),
whose long since (resting in eternal
peace) papa suffered degradation,
humiliation and understandable lamentation
as a kid living in Flatbush.
Authorities and expert legal scholars
pieced together what probably comprised
a lengthy epistle rivaling the Epic of
Gilgamesh).
Recollection recounted torturous,
malicious, and flagitious mean spiritedness
visited upon the ambitious, cadaverous, and
timorous body electric high-jinxed introverted male,
whose abstemious, conscientious, and nutritious
dietary regime, could not forestall rigor mortis.
A postscript (purportedly penned prior to
once philosophical pensive poet's papa's passing)
stated that said personage felt bitterness,
disharmonious envious self loathing.
That grownup man known as mine father,
though once upon a time, said recently
anonymous deceased old fogey ironically
registered as an atrocious, cantankerous,
and egregious deplorable high school student.
Also, the author of what constitutes partial
opprobrious litany attests during his
idolatrous, notorious, and semiconscious
Arab zombie school daze.
Attributed To Concerned parents
of Traumatized Refugee
Dear Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump...
Posthumous belated tattered letter fragment
recently discovered (liberally sprinkled with
hyperbole (presumed for greater audacious
zealousness), sans accidentally acquired
by yours truly.
Miscellaneous personal item highly valued
when thwarted from auctioneer, whose gently
persuasion collectible merchandise requisitioned,
thence keepsake property perfunctory mandatorily forfeited.
Due compensation from sole male heir (me),
whose long since (resting in eternal
peace) papa suffered degradation,
humiliation and understandable lamentation
as a kid living in Flatbush.
Authorities and expert legal scholars
pieced together what probably comprised
a lengthy epistle rivaling the Epic of
Gilgamesh).
Recollection recounted torturous,
malicious, and flagitious mean spiritedness
visited upon the ambitious, cadaverous, and
timorous body electric high-jinxed introverted male,
whose abstemious, conscientious, and nutritious
dietary regime, could not forestall rigor mortis.
A postscript (purportedly penned prior to
once philosophical pensive poet's papa's passing)
stated that said personage felt bitterness,
disharmonious envious self loathing.
That grownup man known as mine father,
though once upon a time, said recently
anonymous deceased old fogey ironically
registered as an atrocious, cantankerous,
and egregious deplorable high school student.
Also, the author of what constitutes partial
opprobrious litany attests during his
idolatrous, notorious, and semiconscious
Arab zombie school daze.
He ranked as de facto semiprecious,
tremulous and unanimous scapegoat
bullied by a bumptious, callous,
disputatious hippopotamus of a brat
infamous bruiser later in his life to become
forty fifth president of UnIted States.
Though documentation incomplete, the un
named subject referred within torn shred
recovered included signatory couching
ambiguous references to a tenebrous,
unscrupulous, and vicious wiseass initials.
Dee Tee quickly intuitively assessed
as one inhumane specimen, whose pugnacious,
pretentious, and pestiferous, persona characterized
impetuous, adulterous apprenticeship appetite
for erecting phallic skyscrapers.
This once pacific pilloried pupil, whose grown
son (myself), now recalls father's misty eyed
anecdotes dripping with acrimonious, curmudgeonly
grouchy, grizzly and crotchety old sorries,
viz refashioned abominable kamikaze
psychological sorties.
I can vividly recall (how painful unto his old age)
oft daddy's repeated quotidian taunts, whereby
that bad ass, acidulous, avaricious, contemptuous,
enormous, and grievous big boy trumpeting
bruiser exuded devious, heinous, libelous, and
parsimonious tightwad, though born into wealth.
Poetry is easy, life is hard,
And so the bravest bard
Begins to buckle with the weight of brutal years—
His singing disappears.
Standing in front of this enormous masterpiece,
Seeing his life story as the layers release.
I wasn’t warned to expect a wonder so rare.
I guess I expected a melting clock here or there.
Venus di Milo inspired his hallucinating toreador.
Dali features her likeness fourteen times or more.
Three of the statuesque figures are full life size.
The painting is over twelve feet high, quite a surprise.
For his toreador with all the masculine strength of Spain.
He chose a goddess of feminine beauty not in vane.
Encompassed in her body is the face of the toreador.
His cream shirt and the button to hold it, as placed before.
The toreador’s green tie fits neatly into place.
Flies marching in straight lines, his hat they retrace.
A splash of color and patterns depict his suit of lights,
The bull exploding through his cape is in our sights.
A Dalmatian dog, its head down to the ground.
Is in what would seem light flickering all around.
And a tiny portrait of Dali as a boy is to the dog’s right.
Dali’s wife is in a cameo top left, she hates the bull fight.
His whole painting is the bull fighting arena to engage.
The magnificent toreador is resplendent in center stage.
The color and flow of the scene being artfully set.
Such hallucinations and even more to be found yet.
Venus is so cold and sedate, the flamboyant toreador.
Swishing his giant cape masterfully the crowd adore.
He shows the banderillos used to taunt the bull.
Blood shows as blue and the bullfight is here to its full.
Could it be ironic a swarm of Girona flies once deterred a fight.
Yet as strong as the bull is, it can do nothing to escape its plight?
Whatever else he was, recall
He was a Bookman after all,
And at his quietest, a poet too.
Redonda…wine…the sordid rest
Ignore for now—extol his best!
For there was good in Gawsworth, as in you.
Orange paisley in the seventies prancing in my mind
Twisted up with lemons and avocados, fruit colors
Also shown in mushroom canister sets and Tupperware
On equal footing stark straight black and white stripes
Proving we are in a new age with additional freedom
I thought it was the most modern we would ever be
Not realizing we would eventually have the internet
Home computers? Phones without cords? No idea.
I thought the seventies were the modern we would ever be.
!Promenade
Dancing fairies drinking lemonade
Festive Promena
Party
Hardy
People dancing
Groups of genders embracing
Passing machine
Dancing Queen
Boogie on
Dance on
Right on! Right on!