A Tribute To Buddy Holly - Ruskin House February 2019 Poem by Mary Champion

Sixty years on …
how the body betrays us.
Teen spirit burns as bright as ever,
but now festooned in fatty flesh;
withered, wrinkled skin;
dull, dim-sighted eyes;
muffled hearing.
Hair, what remains,
is grizzled - grey or bottle blonde;
creaking joints join the dance.
Yet how the memory stirs
at those well-loved songs.

Six decades on…
surely it was only yesterday…
so close…
so vivid…
so tantalisingly intangible.

One lad looks the part…
slim, leather-jacketed, side-burned -
a cruel reminder of the way we were.
Could have stepped straight off of Sunset Strip,
with some chick simpering
'Kookie, lend me your comb.'…
 

Must have come with his gran.

Oh Boy!
Rave on…
Everyday…
It doesn't matter anymore…
but it matters more and more,
it matters like hell…
it hurts like hell.
How could we have let it happen?
We should have resisted time -
our Teen Spirit -
eternally young,
eternally eager,
but clothed in crumbling flesh.

And top of the bill -
Vladimir - a tribute to Buddy Holly
from the old Soviet Bloc -
what would Joe McCarthy make of that?