My Lament
and That Other Voice
That Other Voice within me will not be denied as I lament the passing of the nineteen-sixties and the life I left behind.
What happened to the world of "heightened awareness" that I found at Woodstock and in the anger of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, a world in which income from that Asian War enabled me to drop out and indulge myself in drugs and booze and protest and sex with one and all?
What happened to freedom from responsibility and loyalty and cleanliness and respect for others?
What happened to the love flowers and communion with nature and my caring-sharing-feeling life, a life devoid of faith and discipline and reason?
I wish I could return to those wondrous years and the life I left behind, but That Other Voice within me will not be denied.
Copyright © 1996 Frank Zahn. Published in The Criterion,
Volume 6 Issue. II April 2015, http://www.the-criterion.com/V6/n2/Frank.pdf; REFLECTIONS: A Collection of the Author's Short Prose and Poetry, Vancouver Books (Kindle Edition) 2019; Alive!: Short Prose and Poetry, Vancouver Books (Kindle Edition) 2019.