by Carl Halling

Created on: September 02, 2011

Shirley Brown was a very beautiful girl

And her brunette hair

Hung down her back

And as the wind blew thru the window,

It waved around. It waved around.

She was making sandwiches

And was packing them with fruit

And two massive bars of fruit

And nut chocolate.

She lit a cigarette, picked up the basket

And with a nod of her head,

Waved her hair backwards

And walked out the back door

Into the alley where,

Propped up against a fence

Was a blue mini-moped.

She mounted the bike

And with a little trouble, started it. 

And the rider made a sudden jump

As a horn blew behind her

And a leather jacketed youth

Sped by on a butterfly motor-cycle.

It waved around. It waved around.

They were going in the same direction

And the young man on the big bike

Turned into a park

And made his way to a lawn.

The blue moped drove down a narrow path

And it too stopped at the Great Green

Where the radio was blaring

And many motor-cycles were lying about.

People turned away

And the music blared on

And the youths talked on.

Then, a park keeper came

But the youths took no notice. 

“What are you kids doing,

The keeper shouted,

I’ve had complaints from all over,

Clear off, wilya,

This is a park

Not a meeting place

For all the Beatniks in San Francisco.

John Hemmings started dancing:

“Cool it, grandpa, get on,

Get going, don’t bug me!”

The kids had gone too far

And they knew it.

Some of them turned away,

As the radio blared even louder,

Litter was scattered everywhere.

 “I ain’t chicken of dying,

John Hemmings then said,

We’ve got to go on,

ALL RIGHT! Who are the crumbs

Who want to chicken out at this point,

Just take your bikes and go. 

We’re free people now.

Nothing can stop us,

We’ll rule the streets,

The young people will triumph.”

He was perspiring wildly

And his black hair

Hung down his back.

It waved around. It waved around.

What you have just read consists of

Edited and versified extracts

From one of my earliest

Existent pieces of fictional writing.

Dating at an estimate from about 1970,

It reflects the spirit of the times,

Even though it’s been sanitised

For online publication.

In the years immediately following

The revolutionary events of ‘68 

I was deeply in sympathy

With the West’s prevailing

Adversary culture

Or alternative Society

Which is very much not the case today.

And my attitude is dictated

Not by increasing maturity,

No, far from it,

But by my Christian beliefs,

Without which I might

Be an aging hipster by now,

Blithely festooned

With ostentatious symbols of revolt.

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