Psychedelic Patterns – colours
Now a love-in, then a freak-out,
All in one hour:
Motives tainted, facts transparent,
Insubstantial like LSD or hash –
Patterns of police batons
Making brutality legality alas!
Were I to believe all that I heard,
It would be absurd,
And yet if just one third were true,
Then just one word would do
To describe this world that amazes and dismays me –
Crazy!
There’ll be mobs looting, police and snipers shooting,
Dark states which even darker get;
States of hate, where pale faces in dark uniforms
Grow even paler yet.
Whilst the heirs to this brave new world
To their dreams on drugs are fled,
Having hallucinations, perhaps,
Of a truly United Nations
And a world that’s better led.
And, like as not, some, demonstrating,
Get shot, and soon forget their pot;
And as is civil, and as is right
Each one is laid in his allotted plot,
Only to find that, even in death
Equality is not!
Some are, and some are not
Saved.
Ken Nevin 1968
Illustration: Claire Palmer
Illustration: Claire Palmer