The FSM Sit-In

And when we killed the lights
to watch him, searching
for something, not the girl,
trailing an irrelevant army
of rollerskate cops, how strange:
Chaplin in the lobby, pot
in the john, Deborah lighting
the seven candles, lectures
on medieval poetry in the Registrar's Office
and civil disobedience in the fallout shelter,
Dylan songs in the stairwell everything passes
everything changes just do
what you think you should do:
how we reached out
to the past and now, confused,
sure. "Don't trust anyone
over 30." "When you go in, go
with love in your hearts."
Mario or Joan, it was one voice,
ours. So nobody booed
the cops when they came, or cared:
we wanted something new, or were.

                      For Dad, 17 Dec 64
                     Inscription in Chaplin anthology