Ripped Van Winkle strolling through the hills
Known for herb the local pub distills
Decided he would just step in and hoist a glass
With some conscious members of the peasant class
The barkeep was Peter Van Dam
Recently returned from Vietnam
With seven special seeds in his garrison cap
From plants growin on a ridge that was not on any map
The conversation turned to war and peace
“Who made us the world’s police?”
That was the two of them’s one-and-only line
And then they exchanged that old two-fingered sign
And by the time he made it out the door
The stars were overhead he wasn’t sure
Where the trail would lead down to that scolding wife
Whom he’d see no more of in this life
Ripped Van Winkle lay down for a rest
In his Hudson’s Bay down-filled vest
Pine needles soft underneath his bones
Grolsch-Book-of-World-Records-level stoned
This happened the last night of sixty nine
He was reported missing at the time
The wife died, the kids grew up and had
kids of their own who’d never known old granddad
Ripped Van Winkle felt the morning sun
Got up, stretched and thought of what he’d done
The night before or was it just a dream
Involving some Catskills bowling team?
The cleared trail was nowhere to be found
He pegged it on that potion he had downed
Cannabis some alchemist most gifted had boiled
a super concentrate as thick as oil
The underbrush was wet and twice he slipped
And though he didn’t feel all that ripped
Van Winkle thought, man, something was amiss
My beard was never long as this
Down he hiked, feeling kind of stiff
A man who did not fear the fiscal cliff
A man whose very concept of today
Was four point two decades away
The woods let him out on Stillman Lane
The scent of ozone hit him then the rain
A vehicle came round the bend and stopped
A man with short hair said where you headin’ pop?
The vehicle looked science-fiction new
(A Ford Bronco built in eighty-two)
Oldies station playin’ Jackson Brown
Ripped said north of Tarrytown
The man said something ‘bout the Knicks
Ripped was too awed to try and mix
He soon tumbled out with a grateful nod
To see what had been wrought By God
That war in Vietnam created fog
And Ripped might just be a shaggy dog
But I’m gonna go straight now, right to the point
While you, my friend, fire up another joint
Ripped Van Winkle is my self-mistake
Who tried to give reality a break
And stuck in the ‘60s just like they say
keeps seein’ everything from waaay far away
When anti-war soldiers gave them doubt
When money wasn’t all it’s all about
When retrograde messages almost prevailed
Before they had two point two million of us jailed
And divided in a thousand separate groups
Jumping through a thousand separate hoops
Funded by enlightened billionaires
Executive-directed by five-cornered squares
No, you don’t have to be Ripped to see
no threat to inequality
We can go ahead and legalize the herb
if the rich/poor system we do not disturb
No, you don’t have to be ripped to see
the sacred as commodity.
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