Twilight of the Boomers
A Generational Recessional
*by Will de Kypia*
*


Eighty million quickened wombs
portend a coming baby boom
News report, 1946

We, the children of
the greatest generation,
arrive right after the
end of their war.

WWII, the big one.

People know that we
are destined to be even
greater than our parents.

Like baseball and the bomb
we prove the gods must have some
grand plan for this blesséd land.

In every living room they
will learn how to consume
Madison Avenue boast

Nannied by TVs that need five
minutes to warm up we overflow
playgrounds and inundate schools.

This is going to go on
your permanent record
Pedagogical admonition

Myriads of chosen few
sit in alphabetical rows.

We pledge the flag, play duck and
cover, study hard, then test very
well in whatever can be tested.

These are the wonder years
Fortified bread commercial

And we grow strong.

Strong from vitamins, fluoride, calcium.
Strong in the certainty of our exceptionalism.
Strong because the future belongs to us.

Existence precedes essence
Jean-Paul Sartre

We believe there is no nature of things.

Societies are neither predestined nor random.
They are the product of choices made and
actions taken by those who came before.

Now we will choose and we will act.

The times they are a-changin’
Bob Dylan

Our starry-eyed choice is to create
a better, a more perfect society.

Many of us migrate from small towns
to big cities. Others return to the land.

We ride freedom buses and drive Volkswagen
vans. Go to the sit-ins, the be-ins, the love-ins.

Put up bold graphic posters to generate sparks.
Rally, boycott, drop acid, smoke pot in the parks.

Culture is counter, the press underground.
Left means a new left with rights granted to all:
Free speech, free sex, too much alcohol.

Favorite hangouts include head
shops, cafés and clubs, record stores,
any scene with loud live music.

The music comes from everywhere.
It pours out of the Village and Liverpool,
Motown, Laurel Canyon, the Bay.

And it doesn't stop whether we're making love
or making dinner, organizing another demonstration
or tearfully lamenting the latest assassination.

You're gonna to meet
some gentle people there
Scott McKenzie

We spend a summer of love wearing
nothing except the flowers woven
through our long, flowing hair.

I ain't marching any more
Phil Ochs

But in Asia a new war is breaking out.
The United States has invaded a small,
far-off nation, meddling in its civil conflict.

Vietnam, a place few Americans have ever
heard of and fewer could find on the map.

The war is both unlawful and immoral.
We will stop this illegal, imperialistic
intrusion by any means necessary.

Hold on, it's comin'
Country Joe McDonald

On campus and off there are meetings.
Lectures. Teach-ins become walk-outs.

We chant, strike, wave the draft cards
we will burn on the steps of a church.

The protests turn into takeovers.
Buildings are occupied. Somehow
someone is able to wangle a permit
to levitate the Pentagon so we do.

When we go on to Chicago
the whole world is watching.

Everybody get together
The Youngbloods

At Woodstock we sing.

At Kent State we die.

In Madison, Wisconsin, we kill.

If it ain’t true it oughta be
Ben Trovato

We confidently await the inevitable
end of an evil war and the collapse of
the corrupt social system that produced it.

The gods play dice with the
universe to amuse themselves,
not to accommodate mortals
Antagoras of Aegyptus Minor

The Revolution never comes.

Wars rage on,
the poor remain with us,
newborn is stillborn in rot of old.

Today is the first day
of the rest of your life
Attributed to
Gregory Corso

Instead of admitting defeat we
decide to reinvent ourselves.

O.K., it's time we moved in together
Carly Simon

Put away the tie-dye, finish up
the MA, and get ourselves real jobs.

Marry, buy nice houses in good
neighborhoods with excellent schools
for the kids who are, without
exception, exceptional.

I got to see all the great bands
T-shirt , Venice Beach, CA

A golden decade slowly fades
as we live lives large or small.

I hope I die before I get old
The Who

Though some memories also dim,
our generation's defining moments—the
pivotal events—remain as vivid to us
as on the day they occurred.

Make a grave for
the unknown soldier
The Doors

Like where we were when we
heard that the Beaver had
been killed in Vietnam.

What a long strange trip it’s been
The Grateful Dead

Now we are those who came
before, others choose and act.

Where have all the flowers gone?
Peter, Paul, and Mary

Soon the bell will knell class over.
Final grades should be awarded
and a last judgment rendered.

We were young with all of our might
Mondegreen heard on WLS, 1965

Our time, if not the best or the
worst, was most blessedly cursed.

May those who follow
us be so favored.


Tap the candle…