Close Up (Poetry)

Linda McCartney’s collection “Roadworks”

A life in pictures, mapped in monochrome,
a candid snapshot trail of where she went
and who she met — the famous, the unknown —
a record of their lives and how she spent
her days collecting stories, frame by frame,
freezing moments in their natural space
and underplaying truth’s elusive game
with subtle glimpses lighting every face.

The ordinary transformed, the instant caught,
forever fixed in honest black and white,
and intimate, her artistry self-taught —
a faithfulness of vision and insight,
her lens more sympathetic than the rest,
its friendly eye perceptive and unique,
the clicking shutter busy and possessed
of energy and instinct’s pure technique.

She was there, a witness to those times,
her photographs the evidence, the clue
to Rock and Pop’s small catalogues of crimes —
the flouting of the rules and things taboo —
so daring then, in retrospect so tame.
Nostalgia softens as the focus falls
on legends victim of their own bright flame
that burned out prematurely but recalls

their essence in each visual anecdote —
a gesture, an expression that reveals
the person underneath fame’s overcoat —
the nature glitzy image half conceals.
Her close informal cameos project
the characters who shaped the sixties sound,
the icons and their culture that reflect
cool echoes from that record-breaking ground.

Her life in pictures, followed scene by scene,
forever changing — her quick camera
a casual diary capturing the dream —
the transience of Pop’s ephemera.
Her shadow lingers wistful in the frame,
has empathy for each eccentric soul
posing in this fickle hall of fame
and named unlikely gods of Rock ‘n’ Roll.