Fifty Years
It was the Velvet Underground...
Waiting for the Man
I remember being eleven years old in '68.
Waiting for Frank Brown's brother, a wounded soldier from Vietnam. I was a kid and he was eighteen. He had a bullet in his leg, and he limped round with a painful gate as we all laughed when we ate blanched American cake.
I didn't say this to Frank, how I was eleven and I didn't want to go to Vietnam.
There was that neighbor across the street, he got shot in a jungle, an enemy bullet pierced his spine. He grew his hair long and danced on his wheelchair like a helicopter. I don't remember his name, just that he was a man.
In 1968 they shot that Negro Preacher in Memphis, they killed America's King.
I was eleven years old, the black kids came to our Sacred school. The principal said don't go outside. I saw out the window they had ghetto clubs and ghetto chains. They wanted to hurt us like we hurt them. The police sirens scared 'em away. Me and Frank Brown ran home. "Frank," I said. "I don't want to go to Vietnam." I had fear in my heart, but no malice or hate.
Bobby Bitner's father aimed his rifle up and down our White street. "Don't you worry, I'll shoot any Niggers that come up and touches our ivory gates." Poor Bobby and his brother Rodney, I'd see their dad beat 'em red. The brothers hated black people too. But white and black soldiers died in jungle lands.
It was the Velvet Underground...
Waiting for the Man
They killed RFK, and I saw the outpouring of grief. But Bobby Bitner's Dad gloated, like he soldiered America's War of Hate.
I was eleven years old and I didn't want to go to Vietnam.
It's fifty years since '68, and I still don't want to go to that land.
Like the Velvet Underground,
I'm still Waiting for the Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrOel9KBswQ&list=RDGMEMJQXQAmqrnmK1SEjY_rKBGAVMSAe3sCIakXo&index=2

Burning Flames
Sitting around the fire.
Smoke began to burn our eyes.
We turned away from the dancing flames,
The autumn logs cracked small jokes against the chilly air.
Passing around our hearts
I recited my poem in tongues
My feet hurt so bad, hiking all day
My worn fingers were once cold, but felt warmer now
To these stranger friends I met nimbly on the road, I dedicate:
To a fugitive drifter who said he was running like his father once did from a crazy men and a crazy war.
"But none was declared," A west coast girl cried.
"You just wait," Her sister replied.
One young man threw his draft card to the dancing flames,
and so did another.
An ole' miner of sand and gold said: I don't know your fathers, but I remember them well. When we danced with burning cards and the smoke tried to chase us away. Like burning forests in Europe. And orange jungles in 'Nam.
One kid runaway said she never heard of 'Nam. But saw on TV Ghandi's funeral pyre.
"They shot him, too." The fire said
Bobby, Martin, John...
They hung them from trees,
Dragged 'em in the street,
They hit them with rocks and bricks and the mortar and shrapnel tore at their flesh. The whole world exploded in rage and hatred. Tribalism against tribalism. A whole century of war. Of Aushwitz. Of May Lai. A century of Europe. Of Asia, Of Africa, Of America. A whole century of jazz. Of hope and prayer. And justice rolling like a river. That was the promise on Lincoln's steps. Justice will come in a dream.
They say trauma gets passed from generation to generation to generation, just like we passed our broken, afraid hearts around that fire. But fires burn out. Or they get extinguished in the rain. Or they never get lit. But there are always fires. There will always be drifters who warm their fingers to dancing flames and laugh along burning embers.  Just as in the morning there is a road to follow along a rolling river.