Where Do You Think You Are---1957? By Greg Clary

 

After ordering a Seven and 7,

Salisbury steak, and

 salad with 1,000 Island dressing,

the waiter asked:

“Where do you think you are---1957?”

Elvis shaking his tail,

Little Richard screaming, “I AM Tutti Frutti”

at White Bucks poseur Pat Boone,

Ike smiling calm and steady,

Ginsberg Howling,

Rosa resisting,

Little Rock 9 integrating,

ducks tailing, bees hiving,

juke boxes kicking.

Sputnik beeping,

French bikinis teasing,

 Hemingway hunting in the African sun,

Kerouc searching without a map,

 Atlas shrugging,

Miles and Monk improvising

 in smoky dim lit haze,

Marilyn smiling that diamond gleam,

televisions glowing

before Bird’s Eye dinners, 

boundaries shifting,

coffee houses whispering

for poets to come with 

rebellion in every napkin-written verse,

teenagers ignoring Cold War fears,

smoking Newports and

 drinking warm Schlitz

 at drive-in movies, 

where romantic trysts unfolded.

Year of change.

Cultural spark. 

 Atomic Age legacy of

drifting souls with conflicted hearts 

and coffee-stained fractured dreams.

Greg Clary is a retired college professor who was born and raised in Turkey Creek, West Virginia. He now resides in the northwestern Pennsylvania Wilds where he enjoys cathead biscuits, an occasional 2 fingers of Jameson over one cube of ice, and people who can ease into a conversation without taking it over.

His photographs and poetry have appeared in many publications including The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Rattle, The Watershed Journal, Appalachian Lit, Rye Whiskey Review, Waccamaw Journal, and the Hole in the Head Review.