A VERSE FOR OVER FORTIES

Remember when hippie meant big in the hips

And a trip involved travel in cars, planes or ships?

When pot was a vessel for cooking things in

And hooked was what grandmother’s rugs might have been?

When fix was a verb meaning mend and repair

And be-in meant simply existing somewhere?

When neat meant well-organised, tidy and clean?

And grass was a ground cover, usually green?

When lights and not people were turned on and off

And the pill was in tended to cure a cough?

When groovy meant furrowed, with channels and hollows

And birds were winged creatures like robins and swallows?

When fuzz was a substance, all fluffy like lint

And bread came from bakeries and not from the mint?

When a roll was a bun and a rock was a stone

And hung-up was something you did to the phone?

When chicken meant poultry and bag was a sack

And junk was just cast-off and old bric-a-brac?

When chicken meant poultry and bag was a sack

When cat was a feline, a kitten grown up

And tea was a liquid you drank from a cup?

When swinger was someone who sung from a swing

And pad was a sort of cushiony thing?

When way-out meant distant and far, far away

And a man couldn’t sue you for calling him “gay”?

Words once so sensible, sober and serious

Are making the scene, man, like psycho-delirious

It’s groovy, dad, groovy - but English it’s not,

Methinks that the language is going to pot?

Author Unknown