DRY CRIK Journal

The young toughs and pretty boys
with ducktails greased, loose coils
trained to hang like they just escaped
a well-combed mold of cool – loud
Buicks, Olds and Chevys, GM tanks
with new paint and chrome hubcaps
loitering summer evenings, idling
at the drive-ins, revving to go fast
as Paul Anka ached on the radio.
Warm beer in a paper sack in back,
under the stars down by the river,
willows whispering in our dreams
after weeks of hundred-degree days
in someone’s orchard, on someone’s
farm or ranch for a dollar an hour,
four burgers or five gallons of gas –
armies of us wanting more to do
in every little Valley town
from Bakersfield to Modesto,
a generation of young bulls pacing
the barbed wire everywhere to lurid
rock ‘n roll gyrations that moved them
to FEAR – all the preaching, all the talk
before and after the pictures in Life,
sideburns and all, gone for a moment
when Elvis got his hair cut.