Guest Feature – A Dim View of the Hippie Movement ~ Chris Rodriguez

At the dawning of the Age of Aquarius,
Strawberry Alarm Clock awakens a
stream of consciousness,
artificial spirituality laced with LSD.
Transformed Beatniks don beads, become hip in
bell-bottomed hip-huggers encountering
their id at a Human Be-In.
Back to the land communes in Strawberry Fields
support organic humanure-spiked food
free for sexual favors at local markets.
Nature Boys in old timey clothes fertilize
filth-crusted bodies with free love,
In a Gadda da Vida, honey!
Urbanization spurned, freaks still choose
Frisco as their center of (de)light.

Free press rings in news,
Feed My Headlines proclaim –
Dr. Strange and Jefferson Airplane attend an
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test at a Grateful Dead revival,
the church of drug induced Nirvana.
Liquid Light Shows draw tie-dyed run-away teens,
down the rabbit hole of
wide-eyed, White Rabbit wonder.
At the Height of Haight Happening,
Hare Krishna chants induce superficial
infatuation with Asian etiology.
‘Keeping it Real’ gets Gays
out of the closet (Far out!),
riding a rainbow of psychedelic ribbons
of Pride to The Castro district.
Hirsute Flower Children with lice, but nice
bare-breasted chicks making love
in patchouli-scented crash pads singing
“love the one you’re with,” oblivious
ball and chain toking through hours
and daze hazy nights.
The free-love train is not a smooth ride.
Stick it to The Man – the mantra in a man’s world.
The Bearded Curtain lacks money,
root of all Establishment evil.
Women serve as replacement currency
coerced to entice new males’ members to enter
the communal state of orgiastic bliss.
Babies abused in false belief,
“It’s alright, it’s his bag. All love is beautiful.”
Magical Mystery Tour, Woodstock,

Summer of Love sexual stew of STD’s
spawns a free clinic that treats
Joplin’s botched abortion.
By all means do your own thing,
tune in, drop out, turn on – blow your mind as
Manson’s musical of murderous missions
taunts L.A. Elysian Park love-ins.
Tricky (Sock it to me?) Dick, with a double (under)handed flash of the peace sign,
tries to send Jo-Yo packing back to Nutopia.
The “Death of Hippies Funeral” buries the
counterculture movement, but uptight,
hung-up, assertive feminists
rise like the Phoenix
from the ashes of burned bras,
born of the so-called age of enlightenment
which kept girls prone,
minds closed
legs open
to Masters and Johnson’s post-revolution probe.
Ouch!

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Chris Rodriguez has retired from the horrors of conventional life.  She
now lives on the brink of inspiration in a 100-year-old cottage in
Pocatello, Idaho. Her works have appeared in various themed anthologies
including Rhetoric Askew, Kelly Jacobson’s, The Way to My Heart: An
Anthology of Food-Related Romance, Anchala Press’s Flash Fiction for
Flash Memories and several by Horrified Press/Thirteen O’Clock and
coming soon to Left Hand Publisher’s, Mindscapes Unimagined.  You can
find her latest at https://www.chrisrodriguez-onthebrink.com or
https://www.amazon.com/author/chrisrodriguez-onthebrink.