Biography (Poetry)

Dear John, I've just read Goldman and the shock
lies heavy - teenage images I drew
and treasured through the sixties Pop and Rock,
lie shattered - I can't reconcile these two

identities - heart-chilling opposites -
the twenty-something idol of my youth
savagely displaced, that face won't fit
a middle-aged, half-crazy near-recluse.

This journalist - some hack without remorse -
exhumes your corpse, describes the slow decay,
declares all gods are mortal, legends false,
feels nothing for the man his words betray.

McCartney, as he's quoted, calls it "Trash",
some residue of friendship makes him loyal,
and publicly won't trade for vulgar cash
old skeletons that rest in private soil.

I'm listening to Lucy in the Sky...
and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
above the sound of bullets, as they fly
through New York streets, the pen dropped from your hand.

It should have finished there but murder lends
its cheap sensation to a tragic death,
intrusive on the grief of fans and friends,
while jackals waited, sly, with baited breath.

And ever since, they've torn you, limb from limb,
made gory meals of paperbacks and print,
where fiction masquerades as fact and thin
speculation spreads its ugly hints.

That book is closed. I looked for you in vain.
Maybe the magic's dead down Penny Lane.