We had to do everything differently,
we hippie/radicals, changing the world.
Our hair ever long then,
gone from legs and arms of the women.
We sported beads, ratty jeans,
colorful tops, without bras.
Smoked pot and hash
instead of cigs and booze,
dropped acid and MDA,
protested that horrid war,
marched with our Black brethren,
just flat out opposed everything.
So at Roberta’s birthday,
cake candled and lit,
about to sing the Birthday Song,
Danny shouted out: No!,
that is bourgeois!
Our country sings it like God Bless America!
A pox on that. On to our own song.
The candles burned lower.
What, could he be that stoned?
Beams of anticipation.
We smiled and sang.
We all live in a yellow submarine,
A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.
We knew that tune like
we knew the old birthday one.
We warbled that in our clique for months,
every time we celebrated our youthful days.
Don’t remember when we changed back.
We did live in a yellow submarine
all of those exciting years,
swam in the underground world
of our refreshing culture.
We sailed around the sun
beneath the sea of green, below
the waves of the America we despised
and our friends were all aboard
as we welcomed more and more
from next door to both coasts.
Revolution without end!
Believing the fantasy—
we created a sea change
made everything better,
psychedelic dreams to justice ideals.
Older now, we still float
there in our minds,
happy for what we did,
sad that it sank.
Originally published in October Hill Magazine