I was on a bum road
Posted: February 19th, 2017, 11:56 pm
I was on a bum road
all I had was a book of poems
as my compass, the psychedelics
had done their work on me
child of the sixties as I was
I did not go to the trip
the trip came to me
but how can I describe what it was like
to be seventeen in 67' when LSD
came on the scene, this magic chemical
that I had read about in Life magazine
after two years of surfing the psychedelic wave
I found myself on the bum road in 70'
with a book of poems, and now I was ready to find out
who the poets were, because I wanted to try
to understand what I had seen in all those trips
or if I had only seen the purple haze Hendrix spoke of
in any case I wanted to say something that was relevant
but becoming a poet, was entering the bum road
and by that I mean that when I moved to northern California
I had no destination in mind, but I knew that I would
be putting my thoughts about my experience into poems
and I would most likely look like a bum all my poet days
a Dharma bum seemed cool to me, because I had been
kicked around by the tumbling tide in my psychedelic ride
I had played make believe hide and seek with flower
child girls at the love in and ran around golden gate park
now the late sixties were gone, and the seventies were kicking in
and it was time to realize what the poets were trying to tell us
because if a poet could not describe a psychedelic trip
then who could, and that is where the Beat poets came in
because they were all part of that era of the fifties and sixties
and like Hendrix said, not necessarily stoned but beautiful
all I had was a book of poems
as my compass, the psychedelics
had done their work on me
child of the sixties as I was
I did not go to the trip
the trip came to me
but how can I describe what it was like
to be seventeen in 67' when LSD
came on the scene, this magic chemical
that I had read about in Life magazine
after two years of surfing the psychedelic wave
I found myself on the bum road in 70'
with a book of poems, and now I was ready to find out
who the poets were, because I wanted to try
to understand what I had seen in all those trips
or if I had only seen the purple haze Hendrix spoke of
in any case I wanted to say something that was relevant
but becoming a poet, was entering the bum road
and by that I mean that when I moved to northern California
I had no destination in mind, but I knew that I would
be putting my thoughts about my experience into poems
and I would most likely look like a bum all my poet days
a Dharma bum seemed cool to me, because I had been
kicked around by the tumbling tide in my psychedelic ride
I had played make believe hide and seek with flower
child girls at the love in and ran around golden gate park
now the late sixties were gone, and the seventies were kicking in
and it was time to realize what the poets were trying to tell us
because if a poet could not describe a psychedelic trip
then who could, and that is where the Beat poets came in
because they were all part of that era of the fifties and sixties
and like Hendrix said, not necessarily stoned but beautiful