Memories

(A lone voice whispers)

I once walked 

Tripping through what I thought were LSD Strawberry Fields

Which seemed to go on forever

As the Beetles sang about free love

In good old Sixty seven

Danced with flowers in my hair

In the red hot summer of love

As I watched some of my old musical legends

Some now singing up in heaven

Janis Joplin

The Who

Joe Cocker and the legendary Phoenix

Jimi Hendrix 

Play Woodstock in Sixty-nine

When free love didn't cost a penny or even a dime

I was young ready and stayed alive

Listening to the

Bee Gees in the Seventies

Whilst overseas

I relaxed with a cold beer 

Watching Frankie And his two Tribes 

Go to war

In The Eighties

As Princess Diana 

Got married with all the pomp and expensive public festivities

Which soon would turn from incredible happiness 

Into an extraordinary dark place 

Filled with mental disabilities

I once flew a red kite in Cornwall on holiday 

With one of my firm favourite first ladies

Our holy Madonna

Listening like a brand-new virgin

On my new white Sony Walkman

As her wild music

Awakened rather Strange urges

All these magnificent memories

I'll forever try to cling on to 

Like a lovesick devotee

But now slowly falling

Like wind-swept golden leaves

From my ageing memory tree

They are slowly burnt 

As they are set free

It's a tragic thing

being that solitary thing

That not only I can see

As this dreadful forgetful disease

Tries to consume every single beautiful part of me

But my Memory Tree

Still has so many golden leaves to quietly fall

That I still live in hope that many will not be obediently recalled 

And in a willful celebration of that inner strength

And to you

Dearest reader

This is one of my last ever poems

While I have the freewill to still give

Remember me

My name is William World

The third 

From a loving family of 6 strong boys and two beautiful girls

Now sitting somewhere warm

In a nice care home 

In the middle of New Mexico 

As I await the drumroll of the Tall Man and his marching band   

The Collectors

To then go home to see the Silver City in the Promised Land

Where I pray and hope 

Somebody still remembers me

Copyright John Duffy