Poetry From The Past......
The Lucky One
Music is really a funny thing
So loud, your brain begins to sting
Tunes go thru you like a silver bullet;
When you're up close you can even feel it.
You take a chance being part of it,
So soak up every note--but beware...
Crazed fans everywhere and they don't care.
About you and your friends
'Bout that beautiful new coat
They steamroll you like a boat
They crush your hands and throat!
Where they're concerned you got burned;
He's getting away, "Hey! Someone!"
No one is here, now they've gone.
As I am lying there someone too stares...
Among trampled bodies, "Pick yourself up!"
I am the lucky one; I try to help him;
His skin is so cold and it's too late--
The music on stage reflects my rage:
Notes piercing through my head; and his cold stare,
I see bodies, I mutter a prayer:
Dear Lord why? Should I cry?
"We only wanted to get high."
Now only say, "Good-Bye"
I feel the music, I give up a sigh
My Lord, are these people too high?
They came to listen to the stars,
They came in their beat-up cars.
(We've all died in other's wars)
Inside themselves: Demons on the shelves,
Who seem to pop out at that dangerous moment,
Then they are ahead of you
Always ahead and they step on my face
It soon turns blue.
They are screaming and seeing red
And I scream, "Hey, that's my head!"
And the bodies behind them
Are all dead.
December 4, 1979 Copyright, 1983, Library of Congress.
I wrote this in response to the horrifying evening I'd just read about in Rolling Stone magazine regarding the people who got trampled to death at a Who concert. Up until then, no one had ever been shot at a show, but people would often get trampled in the pandemonium which occurred to get to the front at General Admission concerts during the 1970s & 1980s.
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