july 20 1969

In the summer of 1969 I lived the hippie life in the East Village. In July the men were about to land on the moon, so I trekked up to Central Park for the celebration. Aliens danced about in the dark, and elaborate floats depicting spacecraft and moon rovers hovered about Sheep Meadow in the dark. In the center of the meadow three enormous television screens were erected in a hollow triangle and there the assembled lunatics watched in stoned and horrified awe as the deed was done.

July 20, 1969 (Central Park)

The police have taken to guarding
The high rocky places in the park
Nightly explosions in the subway
Have left a taste of a coal miner's
smoking fears
The sky is a dirty red fog;
The night drips over those trudging
through wet grass
To celebrate
Where monster spotlights
Strain and scream at the moon
A studied intoxication
A calculated stupor working itself
toward climx;
Vague gypsies, traces of witches,
Noisy lunatics are quarreling
over
a lovely corpse in the mud
Little sister, they've landed men on the
moon--
What obscene dance shall we make
To celebrate this rape?

--Amos Stoltzfus