(Nowhere Man) The Killing of John Lennon

ORPHEUS IN THE ATTIC

Red lights flash, sirens blare, a blue

and white police cruiser flies across Manhattan.

Over his fallen and broken body,

John Lennon floats,

John Lennon

hovers.

His mind flashes back to when he was a boy

and a band played behind the wall of his garden.

Debilitated by paranoia and delusions,

Mark David Chapman harassed Hari Krishnas

and threatened

Scientologists.

He sent telegrams to Satan.

Outside his holding cell, he is fitted with a bullet proof vest.

“No fuck ups. No Oswalds.”

The police commander calls out.

We are buried beneath falling ashes.

We hear the tinkling keys of a piano.

We hear a voice.

Like a hummingbird, it feeds on flowers and honey.

Our minds flash back to when we were children

and a band played behind the wall of our garden.

John Lennon floats, John Lennon

hovers.

The Eighth of December

It was the eighth of December.
This is what I remember.
This is what they said:
John Lennon had been shot.
John Lennon was dead.

It could have been George C Scott.
It could have been anyone.
But a psycho with a gun
had snuffed out the sun.

Yoko took to her bed.

John Lennon was dead.
It was the eighth of December
That is what they said.
This is what I remember:
John Lennon had been shot.
John Lennon was dead.