Tristan Robert Lange

One Out of Five

I can hear it, the thumping bass drum,

The rhythmic tapping of the high hat,

The droning pounding of the

Keyboard bass,

The choppy, distorted guitar

Grinding out a path to revolution.

Then musings on loving a girl,

A wild child, grace-filled,

Dancing naked in the desert—

A peyote dream of rebellion—

The celebration was about to begin.

But it never really did, did it?

The screaming poet sings of numbers

That could rise like skyscrapers

Changing the lopsided landscape—

A wet dream

Absorbed by the sock of sadistic suffering

Held by babies who boomed and made “love”—

Had kids—

Felt the fears fomenting frigidly

In their hearts—now black obsidian—

Hardened by the promises of gangrene scraps

Tossed to the dogs of dereliction.

Agent orange has left the jungle

For jaded hippies, cutting down the army

To one out of five.

The numbers that once were are no longer,

Those who started the rebellion

Have become

Turncoats—

Forgotten hopes of a bygone age

Where progress was demanded—

Progress—it has been lynched,

Strung up by those who set it free

From bondage.

Five to one has become one out of five.

As for me, born in a later age—

I keep the screaming, drunk poet’s words

Alive.

“When the doors of perception are cleansed, man will see things as they truly are—infinite.” —William Blake