Poem worth a five minute read

Poetry by Jeff Poniewaz

Why Young Men Wore Their
Hair Long in the Sixties

Because they could feel the deforestation of the Amazon

breathing down their necks even then,

Because half of the world's trees have been cut down

since 1950,

Because even as kids in the '50s they could feel

the wilds dwindling, and were given crewcuts

soon as school let out for the summer,

Because they didn't care if some bigot

thought they looked like girls--

they were unmistakable male to themselves

and weren't afraid to accept the female

half of their soul and love the Mother Earth,

rejecting the macho Earth-rape of civilization,

Because they had to become long-haired Indians

to expiate the genocide of the Indians

by their European-invasion

boatpeople greatgrandparents,

Because even their European Paleolithic granddaddies

all had long hair before they cut down

the forests to make room for cities

with barbershops right next to butchershops,

Because they had to make up for all the baldheaded skeletons

the Nazis kept as deathcamp slaves,

Because though they dug Buddha's bald head

they liked getting high

in other ways besides meditation,

Because Jesus was crucified for having long hair

by crewcut fundamentalists who went back

in a time machine to make sure he'd be

the Only hippie on their holycards

Because Einstein's hair burst from his skull in protest

of radiation sickness making people's hair fall out,

Because Eisenhower's bald head was succeeded

by Kennedy's boyish shock of hair,

which got blown off his head the year

before the Beatles came to America,

Because Elvis's duck's-ass outraged the '50s

as much as the Beatle-cut outraged the '60s,

Because Stokowski let his mane fly illuminated

on album covers decades before Billy Idol,

And long-hair music has been letting its own long hair down

much longer than "Roll Over Beethoven,"

Because even short-haired hepcats like Charlie Parker

let down the long hair of their souls in their jazz,

Because James Dean's pre-Elvis noncrewcut rebel

is a nobler symbol of the '50s than Happy Days,

Because haircut conformity's a sellout to getting a job,

Because Whitman shook his white locks at the runaway sun

while loafing on a hill of summer grass,

"And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves,"

he wrote observing the flowing grass,

Because Industrial Revolution lobotomizes our mammal brain,

Because military-industrialism barbers the heart

with bayonets,

Because "patriots" yearned to razor the throats

of bearded longhairs during the Vietnam War,

and yearned to shave off their balls as well

to make perfect eunuch robots of war

albeit Bob Hope pimping Ann-Margret

to the about-to-die: "Remember, boys,

this is what you're fighting for,"

Because Moloch lusts to blow their balls off in battle,

Because Jim Morrison flashing his phallus

in the face of the Vietnam War

got busted for obscenity,

Because Rock'n'Roll pit its ecstasy

against the nightmare madness of war

(tho rock promoters scalp rock fans

as much as ticket scalpers do),

Because hair longs to be long,

Because even when we die our hair wants

to keep on growing forever,

Because every wild horse loves its flowing mane,

Because long hair means a wilderness

and short hair means a lawn,

Because John Muir said the first thing they do

is cut down the trees and the second thing

they do is graze sheep amid the stubble,

Because the first thing they do in

a prison an insane asylum or the Marines

is shear off all your hair exactly like sheep...