JOHN LENNON, 1940-1980 |
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This man
came across the universe
when needed
crying 'nothing's gonna change
my world'
and was taken from it
long before the job
that he invented for himself
was finished.
The silt that settles in and saddens
erases endings and enrages starts
is not that maniacs continue
to still genius,
it is the knowledge knocked into us
yet again
that peace is not with the people
and love cannot, will not be legislated,
It does not spread among us
with the urgency of pestilence or plague.
Lunacy is the new epidemic.
Will there be statistics soon
that tell us madness now strikes
one in four?
The widow and the child
the nation and the citizen
cannot mourn
and by so doing be relieved.
With presidents and popes
and poet minstrels
in the crossfire,
who walks in safety?
Not the Georgia child,
not the city subway rider,
not some divided country
believed that it fights a holy war
by sacrificing its people
to famine and fast.
It is not enough to hope
that ashes
taken by the wind so quickly
will come to earth as seeds,
and new John Lennons will begin to sprout
by the thousands and the thousands.
We must continue to BELIEVE
that many are the men of peace
who from time to time will set out
to walk among us.
Even now
as we await, anticipate
the arrival of the newest architect
of sensibility
we are late in joining hands
to form a circle of protection for him.
But I have noticed, only recently
that the widows of slain giants
take on a certain afterglow,
or was this the shine
that illuminated those great men
before the slayings
seen only now
because the greatness we observed
has been removed.
Perhaps it is a partnership,
one we never understood.
If so
the half that stayed behind
shines brighter than most constellations,
their guiding light or residue
remains a beacon
a searchlight that still scans the heavens
in search of that bright beam
that went ahead.
- from "The Beautiful Strangers", 1981 |
