Darkly sarcastic
and sardonically wry
We hum and we dance
to American Pie
Rolling thunder over head
Kool-Aid, Keds, and Wonder Bread
Vietnam served us the blues
Cronkite was the nightly news
Worry traveled through the air
And stuck to faces everywhere
They shipped us to the VanHoff School
We learned about the golden rule
Over finger paints and duck-duck goose
and thermoses of apple juice
Mrs. V in her floral dress
sang “raise your hands”
and “clean your mess”
and
“before the day is done
try to touch the sun”
Jungle-gyms and trampolines
Wacky Packs
Mad Magazine
Baseball hats
and Spider bikes
Dad’s Gannset beer
Mom’s Lucky Strikes
Kick Ball, Fishing, Doorbell ditch
Watching reruns of Bewitched
Nixon, Agnew, and John Dean
Shaving cream on Halloween
Through whiffle ball
and kick the can
Johnny Carson
and Ed McMahon
Watergate was all around
in our sight
and in our sound
on the news
and in the paper
the Viet Cong
and foiled caper
It lurked and hovered
overhead
Pages written
and words were said
it wormed its way
into our head
that innocence
was finally dead
it’s all we heard
and all we read
in undercurrents
a subtext grew
a dye was cast
for me and you
we dipped our bread
into the stew
Enjoyed the dark side
of our view
and you were me
and I was you
bendingtheneedle 