Best Fifties Poems
If only I had been a teen in the Fifties
I'm sure I would have had "Happy Days",
Like Fonzie I would have donned a leather jacket
And young babes would have lavished me with praise
Like James Dean I would have that swagger
There'd be a cigarette hanging from my lips
I'd have the right moves on the dance floor
They would say "Check out those Elvis Hips!"
You would see me riding down main street
On my Harley with a babe on the back
Making our way to A&W
The best burger before a Mac attack
Once done eating we'd go to the Drive in
If dad would lend me his new Chevrolet
The back seat would be way more comfortable
Then a roll in the barn in the hay!
With fogged windows we wouldn't see the Movie
We'd still hear Humphry Bogart and Becall
Passionately rounding all love's bases
Not concearned about the movie at all!
So now I am living in my fifties
I'm Fifty three years old to be exact
The back seats have gotten much smaller
And I am way to uncool to attract!
For Kelly Deschler's Decade Contest.
Beaverish, feverish
hot Mrs. Cleaver wished
that her affair had not
given her clap.
Fast Eddie Haskell, her
boy-toy, that rascal, his
transmissibility
claims were all crap.
“Tickle me, pickle me,
say it’s not true, for if
you have the clap then I
must have it too!”
Doctors prescribed her some
anti-microbials,
Ward soon found out that she
had been untrue.
Beaver was curious,
Ward was so furious,
fake news of Eddie’s lewd
films made him snap.
“June, you’re so sensible,
incomprehensible,
that you could fall for that
con-artist’s crap!”
Friskiness, riskiness,
ratings were rising, but
not so surprising they
cancelled the show.
Frightened by content too
radiological,
sponsors said “Beaver” was
not apropos.
The Fifties were really and truly not all that square
Though that dullard Dwight D. sat in the Executive Chair
And his frumpy wife Mamie had really bad hair
Matching those dowdy, plain dresses she'd wear ...
While husbands toiled in obscurity for large corporations
The "Ugly Americans," reviled by most other nations
Their stay-at-home wives feeling mostly frustration
Downing "happing pills" daily instead of real medication
Their sons sporting letter sweaters, obedient jocks,
Their daughters in plaid skirts and white bobby socks
Penny loafers and saddle shoes were in for ten years
Along with white levis and coca-cola -- never rum, never beer
Yet how about Krushchev's dust-ups with Tricky Dick Nixon
What about Sputnik 1 and the panic it put us in
And remember George Wallace and old Lester Maddux
Hosing down *******, echoes of Crispus Attucks ...
The rise of brutal pro football threatened apple pie and baseball
Heralding the next decade's premiere spectator sport, i.e., 'spaceball'
Joe McCarthy dug up the dirt of a "red scare's" nitty gritty
In the work of the House un-American Activities Committee
Then there was Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus
Championing the yearning for justice in so many of us
And the music, the music, so outrageously wild
Chuck Berry, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper -- that overgrown child
Yes, the Fifties were really and truly not all that square
Though we shan't heed the call of those who'd return us to there
Slide-out Coke machines
Bubble gum baseball cards
Superman/Batman comics
Full service gas stations
25 cents a gallon
Dial phones
AM radio
Fats Domino
Black & white TV
Rabbit-ear antennae
Three channels
I Love Lucy
Drive-in movies
Double dating
Drive-in diners
10 cent hot dogs
Saddle Oxfords
Penny Loafers
Vacation bible school
Homemade playgrounds
Barefoot summers
A dollar was a fortune...
No cable
No Internet
No cell phones
No problem...
Throughout the nineteen-fifties, times were neat;
full, long flared skirts and bobby socks gals wore,
while rock and roll and doo-wop moved our feet
to music slow and fast on the dance floor.
Each Saturday, we'd all go to Hi-Y,
where classmates gathered to have fun and dance.
Most partnered with their special gal or guy-
that music of the fifties did entrance!
A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On,
would move our bodies- arms and legs so fast.
But, with slow songs like, Love Me Tender- drawn
to dance real close with partners unsurpassed.
So simple were the times we spent back then,
that dancing, for teenagers, was the best
treat we looked forward to each weekend when
we could relax and rally, unsuppressed.
Only You, and Rock Around the Clock-
It's Only Make Believe, and Peggy Sue;
Don"t Be Cruel, My Prayer, and Jailhouse Rock-
these drew our feet to each dance rendezvous!
March 8, 2020
~2nd Place~
Contest: The Good Old Days
Sponsor: Mystic Rose Rose
Judged: 01/17/2021
~1st Place~
Contest: Strand Pick 4
Sponsor: Brian Strand
Judged: 04/08/2020
~2nd Place~
Contest: Dance With Me
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
Judged: 04/07/2020
Song Credits in order of appearance:
A Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On -Little Richard
Love Me Tender -Elvis Presley
Only You -The Platters
Rock Around the Clock -Bill Haley & His Comets
It's Only Make Believe -Conway Twitty
Peggy Sue -Buddy Holly
Don't Be Cruel -Neil Diamond
My Prayer -The Platters
Jailhouse Rock -Elvis Presley
Fabulous Fifties
is what they called it,
we just called it a good time.
It was a great time in history
to be a teenager, to have our
youth, it was a time for some
to rebel, others to grow up.
Movies were some of the best
TV shows were coming of age,
with I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke,
Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet,
which brought Ricky Nelson fame.
Who could forget Garry Cooper
in High Noon, or Ray Miland
plotting to kill his wife in
"Dial M For Murder".
No one would believe
Richard Carlson when he
told everyone that a space ship
had landed in the Arizona desert
in "It Came From Outer Space",
or the little boy who said
he saw a space ship land out in
his field and people kept
disappearing by falling through
the ground in "Invaders From Mars"
in 1953.
The Brooklyn Dodgers finally
brought home a World Championship
in 1955. This year also brought
Rock 'n Roll to us teen agers
when Bill Halley and his Comets
had a hit with "Rock Around The Clock".
1956 was the first no-hitter when
Don Larsen of the New York Yankees
threw one against the Brookylyn Dodgers
in the World Series, it has not happen
before or since in the World Series.
The Fifties also brought us 3-D, way
before our so called 3-D TV sets of today.
I remember seeing a few or so, wearing
those white glasses we thought we were
so cool.
Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Chuch Berry,
Little Richard and many others will
never have that many big music stars
again. A New York Baseball team went
to the World Series every year of the
Fifties except 1959 and they would
have then also, if the Brooklyn Dodgers
had not moved to Los Angles.
The Fifties was a great time to
grow up, things would never be
the same again, our youth was left
in the Fifties, times would change
and leave us longing for those
good old days when old age
reached us.
Written 6-20-11
Limericks crochetés : Once a Bar Student in the fifties
Once a Bar Student in the fifties
Hoped to finish quickly his law studies:
Some students tipped him off
Pass-list clerk Good Enough
Will shift around marks for Five Guineas!
One late Singh Bar-at-Law, Seremban
Took finals with student Wei Ni Shan:
May nineteen-fifty six
Trinity exam fix:
Who was called to the Bar if not Shan?
Said Singh: “Week before results are known
At Council of Legal Sovereign Crown:
In open envelope
Put five guineas like dope:
Clerk will to refectory come down.”
Now Singh had booked his return passage
His fee reached clerk by special message:
“What! Only five guineas?”
Wei Ni Shan made much pleas.
“Once on Pass List give more to assuage!”
For decades choice invitee at bars
Was you know who: O! Do-good-er woes!
Look up or down: East-West
Never at him in jest:
Think: all the good he did to Yahoos!
Wei Ni Shan twice went to refectory
Early one morning at nine-thirty:
Saw West and East Indians
All shot-up onions:
Drop their envelopes in mail-rack tree!
Mister Do-Good-er was good enough
The hundreds of lives not to think of
All over Empire
Famished straits all dire
Waiting for Barrister to lift off !
When empires crumble on last legs
Old Masters then hatch sly loaded eggs
Ensuring level best
Way to scuttle the rest:
Yahoos make enslaved Houyhnhnm dregs !
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2014
One night each week, we courting couples meet
to share our poetry and chat a while.
This time we’ll all enjoy a special treat.
Romantic sonnets sure to make us smile
and swoon will be recited in grand style.
Though not part of the beatnik “misfit” crowd,
we’re nonconformists--in just one respect.
Our venue is a grassy field! We’re proud
to have this spot that many would reject,
this place where kindred spirits can connect.
March 12, 2020
Contest Title: Back When Poetry Contest one of two that placed 1st
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
April 4, 2020, entered in Brian Strand's contest
School Uniforms in the Fifties
By Elton Camp
Some people have an idea they think is new
To tell students what to wear is what they do
“Wear a uniforms that is up to our dress code,
Or else you will be required to hit the road.”
As far back in time as several decades ago
School uniforms existed but were de facto
Fail to comply meant you had to be a geek
Socially that put you very far up the creek
Blue jeans all boys were expected to wear
And a flattop was the only way to cut hair
Thick athletic socks always had to be white
Oh, we were, back then, just quite a sight
Not one girl would wear pants to school
That would have violated the tacit rule
Full skirts were what they all did wear
To attend wearing shorts, none would dare
It was enforced by the strongest thing around
Violators would receive a sneer and a frown
Peer pressure kept the dress code in place
Back then, nobody was willing to lose face
And if a boy had placed a ring into his ear,
Instant retaliation of the guys he must fear
“What’s that you have got there, my dear?
It’s obvious to all of us. You are a *****.”
Such talk was the universally accepted way
Bullying didn’t just start in our present day
So whether it was your voice or grooming
The group norm you had better be assuming.
In the quiet twilight, we gather here today,
To honor my dad, remember him, and pray.
From the promised land, he flew with no regret,
To the fifties U.S., a different mindset.
In the old world, he wore many hats, even a soldier,
Now a young man on a Greyhound bus, bound for Boulder.
"Mariah," the bus played as they rolled along,
He remembered Mount Moriah and mistook it in the song.
He told us the U.S. had been great, yet he was sad,
Perhaps because we didn't know what we once had.
He worked his way through the U of C,
Studying the holistic subject of geography.
Dad became a professor; I watched the applause,
At conferences, everyone knew who he was.
A geographer who explored every field,
Endless books in his study, a vast horizon revealed.
Our summers in New England and the West,
The mile-square farm on Black Hill Road was the best.
Swimming holes, blackberry bushes, mountain hikes,
Exploring dirt roads on three-speed bikes.
But time went by, good came, but so did pain
People seemed so plastic, no anchor kept them sane
The sixties began the process, self-image changed,
A once-great country now became deranged.
Geography was deemed passé, no longer in fashion,
Radical winds swept through college halls, a destructive passion.
A compass spinning wild, the intellectuals sinned,
He wondered if Mariah still named the wind.
In older lands one friend had fought Nazis and Communists too
You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but it was true.
Dad joined with him and others to stem an intolerant tide,
A battle of course doomed, but at least they tried.
While we're still standing here, memories endure,
A young man's arrival, his heart remaining pure.
He's gone now, but he didn't cave, he made his stand,
In the old and then in a new Promised Land.
Zionists have been hunted in High School halls,
Jews huddle in fright as mobs bang on the walls.
What would he have felt, to see democracy’s shame?
Though I know he lost I’m proud he ran the race all the same.
Tea with Gran,her muffins supreme,
Bath and change and hair brylcreamed.
into town to the pub in the square,
our gang always met there.
Checking the football scores
in the Oxford 'green un'.
Trad jazz with Donegan,Bilk or Collier
or maybe the ballroom bacchanalia.
Skip,hip-hop or jive or more sedately
to the Friday Five.
A swift half of cider in the Bodega bar
sadlynone of us could afford a car.
Dropping a shilling in the snug juke
box,Haley and Elvis,then unorthodox.
Bought tickets for the coming live shows,
Cochrane,Cliff and Shadows.
Later, at the dance the last waltz about
to begin,if you were fancied ,it
showed in her coy grin.
Requesting a date took a little courage,
so glad my choice that day,led
to marriage.
flirty dancing,fancy free
quick-step and ladies excuse-me;
fox trot and last waltz slow,
holding close,as passions grow.
FIFTIES FOOTLES
flirty
dancing
ladies
excuse-me
quick-step
fox trot
hop skip
jive trip
last waltz
so slow
hold close
love flowed
Listen to the rock’n’roll of the fifties
alive, raw, unfiltered, throbbing
away in your ears, your veins, your pulse
racing along with your feet…
From Elvis to Little Richard
Jerry Lee Lewis to Richie Valens
You’ll squirm, you’ll wiggle, your heart’ll
giggle ~ it’ll keep you off-balance
Don McClean sang of the day
the music died
I say 50’s rock is here forever
to stay ~ never ever to go away