Friday, April 13, 2012

John Lennon by Mary Jo Salter

The music was already turning sad,
      those fresh-faced voices singing in a round
            the lie that time could set its needle back

and play from the beginning. Had you lived
      to eighty, as you’d wished, who knows?—you might   
            have broken from the circle of that past

more ours than yours. Never even sure   
      which was the truest color for your hair
            (it changed with each photographer), we claimed

you for ourselves; called you John and named   
      the day you left us (spun out like a reel—
            the last broadcast to prove you’d lived at all)

an end to hope itself. It isn’t true,
      and worse, does you no justice if we call
            your death the death of anything but you.


II

It put you in the headlines once again:
      years after you’d left the band, you joined   
            another—of those whose lives, in breaking, link

all memory with their end. The studio   
      of history can tamper with you now,
            as if there’d always been a single track

chance traveled on, and your discordant voice   
      had led us to the final violence.
            Yet like the times when I, a star-crossed fan,

had catalogued your favorite foods, your views   
      on monarchy and war, and gaily clipped
            your quips and daily antics from the news,

I keep a loving record of your death.   
      All the evidence is in—of what,
            and to what end, it’s hard to figure out,

riddles you might have beat into a song.   
      A younger face of yours, a cover shot,
            peered from all the newsstands as if proof

of some noteworthy thing you’d newly done.


I picked this poem because it is about the life story of maybe the greatest creator of music ever. He was truly great and was an inspiration to millions of little rockers out there. He touched the hearts of millions and made a huge dent in history with his life changing music. If i could bring one person back to life of go back in time to meet someone it would be John Lennon. The saddest day to many people is the day he died, and in fact the reason he died is because one of his fans was so obsessed with him.

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