He predictedthere would come a dayfor changing strategies,when to carry on as usualgets to being ridiculous.Until that day, let’s keep onplaying Queen in tight jeans,bottle-brass hair let downand I-don’t-give-a-fuckemblazoned across our bosoms.In the end, he neverhad to figure out how to agewhile twirling half a mic stand.Let’s you and I not botherfiguring that out, either.
Real Toads are inspired by FREDDIE MERCURY. I think I could write a dozen poems inspired by Freddie; this is just something, just one thing I've been thinking about in connection with his life and music. And, this #14 of 30 Poems in November to benefit Center for New Americans.
So sad to see a vibrant life cut short. Remembering Freddie Mercury's death gets me thinking about those early years of the AIDS epidemic, and how little we understood it as we saw it cutting down such fearless men. I like your viewpoint: he never had to figure out how to age.
ReplyDeleteAMEN, sister!
ReplyDeleteOh yes. some die young or even younger.. a tragedy indeed.. and what an impact when you knew the reasons.. a face to put onto a disease.
ReplyDeleteHe was one of the first to go.... he didn't need to figure our how to age, but had to figure out how to die--with that prance so vividly described in your poem, with the love in his lyrics, with living on stage and encouraging others to sing ... I am very moved still. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI've been listening to interviews with Freddie Mercury, and it's just so unbelievably sad to listen to him talk about his performance, and how he puts on a persona, and what he's like off-stage... and then how he realizes that he can't carry on like this forever, that eventually it will be ridiculous for him to strut around like this when he's a certain age... which he never reached. it's like a punch in the gut. but it also got me to thinking about how much i want to not give a fuck, not ever, to just be myself now, and 20 years from now, and at the end of what i hope will be a very long life.
ReplyDeleteso many things to say about Freddie... so much inspiration. i think i could write a dozen poems kicked off by him. hey, there's an idea! i have how many more to go in November?
That's so funny that you mentioned the half-a-mic-stand...I wondered about that, too. Love your poem, Marian and thank you for the challenge....I have to apologize though for getting a get verbose with it...I won't feel bad if you don't feel like reading the entirety. ;)
ReplyDeleteit was a thing he did... at some early show the mic stand broke so ever after he just used half. to great effect, i think. :)
DeleteI love the last stanza. :)
ReplyDeleteYes, that last stanza speaks profoundly to me. I don't want to even try to figure out aging...I just want to live.
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, I read "Stimulating Freddie"! I need to get some sleep!
ReplyDeleteThe Puer Aeternus is the flying boy in all of us, Freddie on the silver sing, never quite stepping down, touching earth ... his opposite is the Senex, old bad-bowel Saturn, gloomily guarding the gates of History. Without the one the other is pathological, the silver angel loosed from Earth (like Freddie), the aging other collapsing into a melancholy freeze. I played once in a band with a guy who had Freddie's vocal range but never enough of the starry abandon. Wonder how he aged. Thanks for this, Marian ..
ReplyDeleteHey Marian-- I confess to not being a particular fan but your poem moves me nonetheless. AIDS striking the beautiful and aging and disfiguring them so rapidly was/is an especially painful part of the disease. Thanks. K.
ReplyDeleteI love your attitude.Last stanza made me smile. Thank you for the music. x
ReplyDeletethank you, friends, & glad for your playing along.
ReplyDelete