The Sixties

By: Julia Vinograd

Our wildness was a by-product,
not the contrived and sour thing it became
when people wanted it for its own sake,
because it had been our publicity, but not us.
We were simply too busy:
taking drugs for religion, practicing sex and talking politics.
And now our imitators
take drugs for pleasure, talk sex and explain why
they don’t practice politics.
We were different almost by accident;
drafted by fear into protesting the draft,
getting in jail to get on T.V.,
and always quite genuinely surprised
and then marching 6 miles uphill,
because the S.F. Mime Troupe was leading
and everyone was laughing and scared?
I didn’t know. I don’t know now.
We became noble by accident, almost by mistake.
Our instincts were hungry for more than wildness, much more,
and they dragged us after. 
I remember feeling ridiculous, righteous, confused, 
but the measure of what we were was what we risked.
Is the gambler’s passion political, even with the world at stake? 
The world was the one that got away,
the streets are full of boring fishermen
reminiscing on the sixties and the one that got away.
Our wildness was the present tense of paradox.
We couldn’t afford to play with fire but we flared like torches,
It wasn’t play, it was serious, it was us without explanations. 
We were going to change human nature,
We were even going to change ourselves,
And I think we knew we would fail.
But we had to try life, it was the newest drug
and very dangerous
cut with fake emotions and real nausea. 
We were impressed, frightened and of course curious.
And so the children’s crusade, the counter-culture
and the summer storms of blood.
Death shocked us then.
One man died in People’s Park, four at Kent State,
and there was damn near civil war.
Now millions die in the papers and those who want
to resurrect our wildness
and only our wildness merely shrug. No torch was passed,
we burnt out on ourselves,
and you do nouveau voodoo dances
around our ceremonial ashes.
Don’t waste your time. If you revived us
we would not forgive you
and some of us learned how to kill,
near the end, neatly, not wildly,
you would take our place only as ashes.
Go find your own games
and leave us our history of vast singing terror
and knowing better, 
and all our wild by-products of breath. 

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If you enjoy the raw poetry of the late great Julia Vinograd, you can help filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal complete the first cut of his independently produced documentary about this important poet by making a tax-deductible donation—in any amount—here. You can also watch the trailer and read more of Julia's poems, here.

You can find Julia’s works at www.Zeitgeist-Press.com along with many other great works from the Babarian poets.