Looking Back (1963-76)

Another oldie, being aired for the first time.

 

I’ve often thought that all the time

We spent, in spending wasted all,

And lost the chance to spend our dreams

The way our dreams would seem; to fall

Against ourselves, against us all!

 

Our dreams were hopes for all the world

When John was murdered, in some dim

November, dim remembered in

The way the world bleeds, at the rim

Of rank misfortune, suffering!

 

And in the silence of our hearts

There burned a flame that roared and purged

Our fathers of their fathers' sins,

And freed us of our fear, the dirge

Of death was spent in one last surge

 

Of madness, on some Asian track

Where death and drugs stalked, white and black

And hate were all sequestered there,

The festering sore of all; we were

Determined not to take it back!

 

Meanwhile the 'yeah yeah' years were just

The outward signs of search among

The minds they drugged from discontent

With all the jingles that they lent, while truth

Was only sung in songs

 

Of Beatles, and with Beatles came

Fresh hope, long hair, the boy next door

Myth, making it, in making it your

Dreams were dreams for taking, or for

Breaking all that went before!

 

Sweet songs, beat songs, love songs were all

From you to us, and when you sang

‘She Loves You’, we believed the score

And married ‘til the altars rang .....

Where now the love songs that you sang?

 

And though we all believed we had

The world wrapped up, the system beat,

The system jived to what we thought was

Our new dream, but all we’d bought were

Variations on some theme!

 

We fought, by God we fought, I well

Remember, when the flower folk were

Peddling love at hatred’s door, in

Hashbury, Haight-Ashbury where

The flowers were crushed and cast ashore.

 

But times they were a’changing were

Our poet prophets promised us

A share in worlds new-cast in flame.

Our only share was all we spent

In keeping poet profits there.

 

Still we persevered, we left the

Cities for the virgin soil, our part

Would be the starlit night, our art

Would be the fading light, bleak

Landscapes be our chosen toil.

 

In final desperation we have

Even resurrected Jesus, time

And time again. But who can pay

The price; six dollars, just for Jesus,

Lights, and all the cast, performed on ice.

 

If, my children, we have failed, at

Least we failed! The hopes we held

Were never lost, or tossed aside, or sold

To thieves… We failed because the years

Dismayed, and burned the pages of our creed.

 

David Lewis Paget

 

6 August 1976

 

 

 

Reviews

[Valentine]

This really sets ones mind to whirling back into the past and all that happened and still did not make the world better but made it worse..Your mind is so intriguing David..I hope you will still be cranking out these narrative style poems when you reaach 100..You are a true mate and I really love your style of writing as you well know..God bless..lol Kathie

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

It's funny. I was born in 1969 and have no knowledge of the flower power generation, the hippies, or the Beatles for that matter. I don't even have any memories of my father, as he died when I was four years old. Having said that, however, I truly feel like the last great generation was that of my father. While I was born after, I feel as if I more closely relate to that period of time, earlier even. I suppose everyone feels this way as they get older, that they relate to older generations the best, to slower times, to more simpler times. Music alone serves as measurement of the masses. If one looks at the music today, it relates a tragedy for society. There is no inflection of love whatsoever in today's music, which does not bode well for the future. I live with the eternal hope, however, that the youth will rebel against the elders and create a path towards a brighter tomorrow. That is, if they aren't too dumbed down, drugged, and indoctrinated and led like sheep to the slaughter.

Your words truly have a gift for evoking emotion --- sadness, anger, remorse.

You are gifted beyond words, beyond the world.

Love,

Linda Marie

[R J Askew]

I watched Easy Rider a couple of months back and it all seems very civilised looking back now. The present gang, rap, rape, drugs, dollar cultures that rule are monstrous. Did it all begin in that decaded after WW2? But then WW2 sprang out of WW1 and WW1 sprang out of nationalism and - hurrah! - imperialism. None of it makes much sense. Maybe it all go back to that apple of knowledge. But I doubt it. Maybe we are just vile animals who must fornicate and fight. Did the overthrow of deferrence improve matters for us?

[Norma J. Jessee]

Those were the days my friend, we thought they's never end,.....but end they did and I don't like the way they ended. We thought we could change the world but it looks as if the world changed us.We had big dreams, big hopes but in the end thats all they were.
This poem brings back so many memories some good and some not so good.

David I am mesmerized by your gift of words. Your words are so richly and compellingly drawn, you can practically hear them breathing from the page. They open your mind and your heart.

[Lena M. P.]

Reminiscence of Art Garfunkel and Bob Dylan. My biggest tears are shed for all that we fought to gain; this generation seems content to sit back and let it be lost. I want to stand on the top of a flowered bus a yell "wake up before all of your rights are lost in the name of the better good!!!" Sir Paul still preaches the word but the fools on the hill are not listening. Nice write and thanks for the memories.

[Mark]

Unlike many of your darker pieces, David, this moves me in my very core. I just want to hold this fellow, as he weeps in angry frustration, "Well, in the final analysis we didn't change much, but we tried, d****t we sure tried, didn't we?" Of course, "The times, they are a-changin'" faster than anybody would like, and in ways no American ever would have anticipated. Perhaps the times, they are a-endin'!
May I recommend to you The Flawed's poem, "Magic Mushroom", as well as my own 'IF" and "JBKOde" for some additional looking forward...and back. Mark