Five songs
By Patrick T. Reardon
.
He restyled the opening
words of Genesis as a
country-western song,
let there be light and
all that, fruitful and
multiply — drinking,
trucks and death
would come later.
.
For a heavy metal
band, he composed a
horror song about a
baby trapped by city
demons: “Don’t bring
me down!” Bowie-ish.
.
At a store on Mount
Horeb Street, under the
el, he found the sheet
music for somebody’s
unfinished Requiem
and wrote an ending.
.
His folk album contained
a suicide ballad titled
“The Lost Boy and His
Brother,” panned as
dark bleak grim.
.
“The Lost Tribes” went
on forever, likened to a
Yoko Ono screech, and
to Lennon’s primal
“Mother,” a dispatch
from bowels of darkness.
.
Patrick T. Reardon
2.17.22
The poem originally appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal on 1.1.22.
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.