Best Boomers Poems
Midwife eyes see so many lives
Slip through fingers despite try’s
To give good care and medication
Health care isn’t shared by the nation
Some who have means will live long
While the poor it seems are done wrong
Then there’s the class that full of bloomers
Doesn’t add up math for the baby boomer
Generation that built and retired at home
See penalties just because they own
And worked to make American dream strong
Don’t tax them at all leave them alone
But big business like hospitals
Will take their homes is so dismal
We must find a better way
To help our elderly with bills to pay
If health care isn’t a right
Like taxes take let’s give them rights
When you get past a certain age
No one should take your house away
We pay the athletes but we can’t feed
The poor or pay the teachers to teach
We build new townhomes on raggedy streets
If the city is strong we must meet all needs
Each time a new arena is built
I wonder if money was like a quilt
Would it warm and stitched with care
Or only if born in it will you share
My muse tonight is a midwife
She’s blue and sighs within her strife
She knows that she will never give up
Trying to solve the societal puzzle for us
Once knew a lad from the boonies
Could really belt out some sad tunies
Made Elly May cry
Big tears from her eyes
Could also fart in tune with big boomies
© Jack Ellison 2015
They were hippies
and societal dropouts.
Scholars, poets and
pot smoking draft dodgers.
Civil right activists,
and anti-war protesters.
Patriots and soldiers
fighting an unpopular war.
Relationships were confused
and marriage became open.
Morality lost meaning and
God was largely forgotten
except to grape Kool-Aid drinkers.
They liked to “groove”
on a Sunday afternoon
and kids hid under desks
for H-bomb drills.
They were good and bad
and pretty and ugly.
They were raised on Dillon,
Joplin, Hendrix and Doors.
Motown was happening
with The Beach Boys, Zeplin,
and the Rollin Stones.
Paul Revere had his Raiders,
Love was a Spoonful and
Three Dog was the Night.
The Beatles reigned supreme.
Sullivan was a king maker,
Elvis was a soldier,
and Archie and Meathead
were "All in the Family."
They welcomed the British invasion
and hung out at Woodstock -
sometimes in the nude.
Many were students
who got high and
routinely cut class.
Most of them were psyche majors
trying to “find themselves?”
LSD was a bad trip
that many took.
Sex was free
and there was a lot of it.
They were spoiled, selfish,
lazy and genius.
They grew up late,
but at least grew up.
They hid their past
and regretted much of it.
They were artistic,clever
and very inventive.
They are also to blame for
much that is wrong.
Many are in denial
and most have regrets.
They were the boomers
of the baby boom generation.
beware atomic attack!
1950s civil defense
duck and cover drills
Bert the turtle
showed us the way
flash of light - duck and cover!
Sitting upon these fringes of change an odd precept
Perhaps a bit bizarre their maxims ironic while viewed
Aneath an infants classroom desk while, his sirens wailed
Gazing into this magical glass; holding both, a future as past
Despotic her age of Aquarius ? Phantoms wielding blades
Making way apropos past time's horizontal doors; vertigo altars
Lifting yesteryears fetus high unto tomorrow's sacrilegious rubicon skies....
Wiping the dust from their babies knees; pledging allegiance while hallucinating
Amid some carcasses carcinogens chemical compound, reactions ? Suigeneris
Inversion's irruptive talisman's clan less, love's holy grail; epochtic charms rattling cans
Skeletal bones prevalent hands ? Theocracy, his kingfish in a morbid light; enter, her sandman.
Most Baby Boomers started out hoping to leave life
having continued our Great ReGenerativity,
progressively recycling boundless growth
of optimal Win-Wealth is also Win-Health.
We are the last human generation
with confidence we could leave more than we have taken in.
To give back,
to pay forward
investment in Earth's cooperative health and safety insurance,
re-assurance.
In this early post-millennial era,
we have a great transitional dissonance
between those who continue believing it is merely realistic,
rationally nihilistic,
to give up on this hopelessly disconnected
non-renewable
non-inheritable dream,
already not accessible to human nature's consciousness
of internal and external climate disruptions.
And, on the other hand,
there remain those of relentless active faith
that we are here at this time,
invested in this transitional moment,
increasing Win/Win potential
transforming short- and long-term
evolving compassionate lifetimes
To learn from Father Sun's warming voice of Wind
to balance healthy consumption
with wealthy production
of perennial renewables
To listen
for life's relentlessly springing up reinvestment
opportunities,
not lifetime for ignoring Win v Lose waste,
risking positive neuro-energy's potential peacetime resources.
As we turn from seeking regenerative integrity
for the span of one humanely natural generation,
toward the span of one humane-divine
MotherEarth FatherSun prime co-relational life span,
old monotheistic WinWe v LoseThey issues,
flying under banners of nationalistic narcissism,
fade into the waste stream of survival of the bullyist
More synergetically renewed by a new EarthTribal cooperative ownership,
a self-with-other Win/Win democratizing
inter-religious identity
nurturing caregiving Light
and receiving Power
Healthy compassion
with all organisms not pathologically hoarding wealth
of divisive nations,
of dissociated egos,
as this new Left with Right
double-binding
ego/eco-intelligence
for evolving renewable lifetime opportunities
and compassionately deniable risks of addiction
to anthropocentric narcissism.
Those were the days my friend, how blessed we were
Although, in past quandam days, knew it not.
Home to us was warm and dry, sound and safe.
Not called on to fight, we had years to play,
Free of conscripted combat ~ with time to kill;
Time to learn, time to listen, time to speak.
Clothes were brightly colourful and charming,
Hair long and flowing ~ blowin' in the wind.
Money no object ~ or so it would seem.
The world appeared to be as a fairground,
A hall of mirrors in which to reflect;
The tunnel of love was always with us.
We played our music and we rocked-'n'-rolled
Our hearts evoked by transistors not sense;
Twisting the night away, far away, lost.
We thought those days, my friend, would never end,
Timeless days of golden spring and summer.
There were no clouds to keep secret the skies.
Yet time moves on and takes its undue toll.
Some of us are carried off with the tide,
Others remain stranded on the surf's shore.
"How lucky to be here!" I often muse
For now I know a generation raised
Was never conceived to grow up at all.
The first K-mart
opens its door.
Into space we
start to explore.
Motown Records is born,
It's from the soul.
We have new music,
It's called Rock n Roll.
For luck we carried
A rabbit's foot.
We kept phone numbers
in a phone book.
There were two
keys for the car.
The Barbie doll,
an instant star.
The kids had Bozo
and Howdy Doody.
We saw the first
drive-in movie.
We had I Love Lucy
on the TV.
We had no safe place
for safety.
In real-time we
experienced Beatlemania.
Our information came
from an encyclopedia.
Food stamps for
people in poverty.
Dallas Texas they
assassinated,
John F Kennedy.
We wrote in cursive and
can tell circle time.
We shopped at the
local five and Dime.
We used the first
electronic calculator.
We ate Swansons
frozen TV dinner.
We got our milk
from a milkman.
Our President was
Harry S. Truman.
We heard music
from vinyl LPs.
We had no color
on our TVs.
The government signs
The Southern Manifesto.
Vaccinations begin to stop
the spread of polio.
We had Dick Clark and
American Bandstand.
The papers read,
Say goodbye to Marilyn.
Turbo1904?
Boomers Prince or Pauper
David J Walker
Remembering when young
boomers knew
That a quarter really mattered
As juvenile consumers grew
The choices always flattered
Displayed in rows at
the corner store
The buying power pondered
A quarter could last
An hour or more
Before its value squander
Remember the times when
Quarters and dimes
Were at the root of children’s chatter
And now in tin pans and coffee cans
The pennies and nickels are scattered
Occasionally counted carefully
in stacks of silver and copper
remembering the value
that used to be the difference of a
prince or a pauper
Is everybody wearing green today
In honour or our Irish friends
Can't ever wear those light, bright colours
Coz of explosions from my bottom end
Try as I might to disguise the sound
It's like a trumpet in a marching band
Mothers try to hide their little kiddies
My boomers are famous throughout the land
Actually been known to topple down trees
Some building have been forbidden entry
Till the all-clear alert is finally sounded
Checking if all the offices were empty
Rather be known for some scientific discovery
But hey, take fame from where it comes
If that's the reason for my new found fame
I take solace and celebrate my bum
Baby boomers, Gen X Gen Y, and now Gen Z
What will the next crop of babies be?
Will we start with A? Will they be boomers too?
Many of us want to know, especially Gen Z.
What will we do now that we’ve reached Gen Z
Will we have to do like hurricanes do
Give them names like Alpha, Beta, and Gamma
or perhaps just Roman Numeral I and II
Shall we call the new babies Gen Trump
Or perhaps Gen Pandemic or Gen Covid
Or do we just let them live out their lives
Like long ago generations did
You see, I don’t recall Gen Caveman
Or Gen Industrial Age
And they seemed to have made it just fine
Without the help of some superfluous adage
I wonder why we started naming ourselves
Are the children so ashamed of their parents
Perhaps afraid they won’t be able to overcome
the terms of their inheritance
Skinny in youth thick in later days
Champion for truth despite delays
As a late bloomer in thought process
Born to a baby boomer and so blessed
Believed in God but didn’t get much church
Felt so odd how the church clicks work
Rather open to explore other fuchsia faiths
Went to the mosque just couldn’t be great
And with Buddhism she felt all a glow
But she still identified as a Christian so
Perhaps it’s true train up a child
But her training was unique and mild
For she recalled Bootsy’s Rubber Band
And Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder on hand
Music was the church in her life
She was a cool nerd never a wife
A poet who sucked at math in her head
But like a mom stretched a penny till it’s dead
Had many jobs, but a mom and proud to be
Not afraid of death for it is purple peace
Ah, such nostalgic nights,
Twirled in skirt, wearing tights,
Music soothed our soul,
We sang along to Rock'N" Roll,
Jiving with our thunderthighs,
Supper, plates of fries,
Our tunes--"Mama Mia" too,
Does Abba mean much to you?
Part of "Kultcha" in our land,
Nostalgic nights, Karaoke band,
Good, clean wholesome fun,
Boomers in our setting sun!
Boomers
Bottle caps were currency
Pop sticks were our props
Maple seeds
Were whirly birds
Spinning like a top
Hopscotch drawn on
Down the streets
Jump ropes tied to reels
Double Dutch was fun to watch
Especially for the girls
Quarters pitched against a wall
Closest takes ‘em all
We played that game
With baseball cards
Some lost DiMaggio
We grew up fast
We learned the ropes
And mostly on our own
We’re called the Baby Boomers
We’re "like a rolling stone”
Bill MacEachern August 13, 2023