for john lennon

today he'd be
stuck on a myspace page

blogging live from the bed-in
no respected news outlet
would be caught dead near

as angry as any other
non-pop 21st century artist

probably never would have left london

makes you wonder
what folks "ahead of their time"
really could accomplish
at later dates

i really had no reason to think about this man--i'm not a beatles fan, and i'm not familiar with his work beyond "imagine". but i woke up in the middle of the night and had the first few lines in my head.

i guess it applies to anyone people tend to say were born too early.

i argue that the longer we're exposed to "exotic" things in this society, the more regulations we tend to throw over them. at first, it's like "ok. they're just crazy." and no one bothers them. after awhile, someone gets offended (or repressed) enough to say, ok. we gotta rein in the crazies. then the backlash starts. and the creativity dies.

the originators are almost always freer than the people they inspire.

i guess that's true for john, too. if he did the bed-in with yoko with a webcam, it would have been forwarded for a week and dropped. he'd be as marginalized as any other anti-war voice. i'm sure his lyrical talent would put him on the fringe, too.

even my mother's running joke about me being born 30 years too late...not really. what would i have to fight for afer the war was over and militants went out of style?

i'm fine now.
just like john was fine then.