Poem 274

This was written (only) twenty years after the song was a number one, it’s now 57 years on … I’ve always been interested in the need some people feel to cry the sky is falling, the way prophets of doom assume moral power to themselves and over others and of course never recant when despite whatever challenges we’re grappling with the sky nevertheless remains in place (ozone hole opens, ozone hole closes) – catastrophising has been a constant of human existence, it’s just the specifics of the catastrophe that keep changing …

… I saw Barry McGuire when he opened the Nambassa festival in January 1978 … he was a bit of a downer on that occasion too …

You Know

I think Barry McGuire
should make a public apology
to everyone
who in 1965
stood there
and told him
they didn't believe
we were on the eve
of destruction