Where have all the Thinkers gone?

Where have all the thinkers gone...?
Where is that smoky salon?
Where is the passionate discourse?
Where is the oratory voice gone hoarse..?

Marx...Herzl...Bilaik
Slabodka...Novhardik
Spinoza...Locke...Kant
Izhbitche...Kotzk...Salant
The magic of an idea...an ideal
The will....the desire so REAL

I close my eyes..and travel back in time..
To a Paris café ..where praising Monet is a crime
To a premier in an Opera hall in Milan..
Where the composer is being booed and hissed on and on
People thinking..relating..
Artists starving..creating
Hope ..never more than a thought away
Money...not worth the time of day
Utopia...swirling around ..steel rim glasses
Teachers..blowing passion into their classes

There was a time when our youth was lost
Seduced by Bukharin and Zhabotinsky
Instead of marijuana and ecstacy
Singing the Internationale with fire in their eyes
Instead of moving to 50 cent as the eye flicker dies


It would be nice to be criticized once in awhile for a shoddy poem on my Blog...too