#10 Dream Poem by Richard Whiting

Lennon stands in the queue:
It must be around Christmas 1980,
but one can only guess how long
these things take;
Ah, John
says St Peter
I heard you were on your way.

Yeah, bit unexpected like, you know;
he replies
anyway I’m here,
and it’d be really cool
to catch up with Hendrix.

St. Peter straightens.
John, he begins
He’s, (whispers) He’s a bit particular these days,
we’re run off our feet,
what with the recession
and of course, Thatcher.
Well, you see He’s not sure;
I mean, well, on the good side
there’s the Bed-in, acorns
the Imagine album
all that stuff for peace,
but then there’s the adultery…
if it were only that of course
we might be o.k,
but then there’s the drugs (never good) ,
the psychedelia
and whose a fan
of Revolution Number 9?

By way of compromise
and a test,
Lennon is returned to earth
in the shape of a wasp.
He finds himself
crawling along a ledge
and peering down at a young man
reeling paper from a typewriter.
The man hands his work
to a prison warder
and asks him to add it
to the manuscript
of a book which he is writing
full of poetry, and song
that nears its completion.

Lennon circles and drops down towards Mark Chapman.
So, he thinks, you’d take my life,
just as my comeback was reaching
a crescendo.
I will sting you, sting you…

but then he sees the warder
with an evil look in his eye, and follows him
to where the script is lobbed,
into an already three-quarter filled skip.

Through the cell window, pours Attica’s light
and as Lennon flies towards it,
he is suddenly aware
of a blurred New York Times
and the crack of his abdomen
against the glass.
He’s dead again.

Back at Heaven’s Gate,
St Peter delivers the Good News.
John Winston Ono Lennon,
You have passed God’s test.
You may enter His Kingdom.

Lennon walks jauntily through,
but after a few seconds hears the voice
of St Peter calling after him;

Oh I forgot John…
Hendrix…
he, he isn’t here

Lennon takes a couple of paces,
looks over his shoulder
and asks

Keith Moon?

but more in hope
than expectation.