MEMORIES (song-in-progress)

 

I look at the gang of girls

Lucille with cultured curls

Me in radical chic

Dymphna long and straight

Dolly daily ironed-hair

Celia’s thick as a bear

And Reds like Raggedy Anne

A decade away from chemoed hair gone

All of us facing gray someday

 

Drinking espresso or jasmine tea at the Cage

No alcohol since still under age

But sometimes we’d get some guy to buy us beer

Drink it near hidden bushes at the Square

Listening to guitars late at night with zero fear

 

And how about the boys caught in the Draft

Bizarre Shirley Jackson-like Lottery

As the USA sent our 19-year-olds away

To Vietnam, a social class war

Didn’t have to go if they could afford

College and willing to be teachers

Or help clean up druggies as street preachers

Or could marry and have kids

We girls good for something at least

So there was cousin Rich the Marine who made it through

And some neighbor boys killed dead

(Mourning, as their death messed our head)

My boyfriend said we’d hide in Canada

Instead, he joined the Air Force, living in Thailand

Leaving me with Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Facing a ring-less future, worrying about our harmony

So married a vet who sat out the war in Germany

 

Aging memories of our personal history

When correctly recalled is the true mystery…

 

 

 

 

© 2024 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: My Peace Ukulele