Hippie (NaPoWriMo #9 & 10)

Hippie, well, yes, but

by Merimee

I wasn’t a very hip hippie—

imposter—I liked beer and Louie Martini

more than Acapulco Gold.

I loved vintage clothes

living freely, impulsively, loving

whom I pleased (myself) to love.

 

I liked the living differently, the burn your

own path, bake your own bread,

knit your own socks, live out of the free

box. I loved my parents who lived

on planet normal but didn’t express

love. I tried to make up for their

lack of by having enough of my own.

Sunshine, the parks, the feel of cloth

for making things, the beads I never really dug

but tried. I didn’t much like shoes so

mostly, in California, barefoot was just fine.

 

I wasn’t very hip. I knew there was so much

I couldn’t do. Only because I thought I

couldn’t. I’m hip to that now, in my 8^th

decade, a little hip. We’ve lost our way

as we knew we would with the moron

on high, the grand Poobah of them all.

Loving is a tough practice, not for sissies.

 

It’s fun to see the footage from back then:

the Haight, the Dead, the hair and pretty women.

I was saddhu enough; no make-up for me, no shaving,

or bras, au natural. And those pretty boys

dead and gone, most of them now. Oh I was so

bad, so self-concerned, so shy and inept. Such a dufus.

A dufa. A dollop of chocolate on a stick. Silly days

of love and music, competitive hipness, hipper-

than-thou turning too many to booze and hard stuff.

 

Thank the Goddess for my babies; my little teachers

who made a woman out of me. xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

RIP George, Jamie, Steve, and Michael. I wanted

to know what was bad about bad, and you guys,

you taught me a thing or two.  I guess I liked you

cuz you weren’t good to me,

made it so I didn’t owe you a thing. Survival it was;

took a while cuz, I couldn’t stand much aloneness. But

that was the gift from all of you, solitude. Thank you for that.