Dishonest wars killed Robert Kennedy,
a thousand thousand children sacrificed

to Moloch, a million farmers slaughtered
on native land while the evil grandfathers

in their steel bunkers deep underground dream
power everlasting, the Supreme Court owned,

democracy imposed by guns, the next
president the next Republican clone.

Will there be a true implosion this time
or more mellifluous lies? Will ravens

ride the storm, croaking sandpaper truth?
In St. Paul, Minnesota, the hippies

lived in a haze of poetry and jazz,
ordering in from the pizzeria.

They had children (some of them) who grew up
on Sunnyside Street in disengagement

for almost twenty years..  Recruit the wild
ones to go to law school, work for defense

contractors and hold secret clearances!
But the daughters and sons began to march

for human rights in Washington D.C.,
to build a peace camp in the fiery heat

of Crawford, Texas, while the president
snuck out his back door, ignoring white crosses

of deaths in Iraq.  Children brought their children
to shape a new radical center, to engage in

dialogues of decency, to circle
away from the stuck places of the past,

the long winter of lies.  Now the ravens
wheel in again, escorting fragile chance.

*prompted by a NY Times Book Review (2/10/08), “The Time of Their Lives,” on two 1960’s memoirs