Summer of Love, 1967

 

Summer of Love, 1967

Here, this photo,
my cabin of teens in deep Missouri
after fathers beat, mothers abandoned.
No flowers in our hair.

Me in the center a college kid, clueless
with a summer job guiding hoodlums.
We canoed the Cuivre River.
I played guitar, sang folky stuff,
ate 23 prunes on a dare. They thought
I was a constipated Beatle.

Jayell caught frogs, built a fire,
fried the legs, shared them.
Oscar had an enormous penis, laughed at mine.
Little Roy caught moths, pinned them to an outhouse
wall where they fluttered and starved.
All had troubles. I loved all.

Where’d they go?
Three to Vietnam, this I know.
Jayell, Oscar, Little Roy,
names in a bathroom stall,
moths at a monument,
pinned on a wall.

…..

First printed in Rat’s Ass Review. Thank you editor Roderick Bates
Photo is of me and some of my campers, 1967