NewVerseNews Sunday: YOKO LEAVES THE DAKOTA

by Maria Lisella

Yoko Ono’s WishTree at the Museum of Modern Art, 1996.
UK’s Daily Mail broke the story last month of Yoko’s leaving New York City.

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… to raise cows on a 600-acre farm
she & Beatles legend John Lennon
purchased 45 years ago, outfitting it
with a herd of 122 cows and 10 bulls …
a dream to live on land as his father did
 
with no plans of returning
 
their attempt to create new lives,
away from crowds, smog, love-ins
and the ceaseless need to be THEM
on West 72 St.—until 1980–
shot in the Dakota archway, Lennon fell
on the feast of the Immaculate Conception
 
with no plans of returning
 
Outdistancing his dad, 47-year old Sean
pushes wheel-chair bound Yoko
from stage to stage, celebrity galas;
she perches alone on the Marcellus Shale
plateau, protests “fracking” for the rest of us,
no longer hibernates in the sprawling Dakota
 
with no plans of returning
 
Controversial, she lived, starved
through World War II,
like a modern-day Eve, gossipy fans
blamed her for breaking up Camelot… 
she offered them her “wish tree” series.
Now widowed 50 years, at 90,
it is as if she has lived 400 years
 
with no plans of returning

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Maria Lisella is the sixth Queens Poet Laureate and an Academy of American Poets Fellow. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her collections include: Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books), Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). Forthcoming is The Man with a Plan.