by Gifford Savage
*
If Sinéad was here she would call out the fakery, false flattery, fickle bleeding-heart eulogies. See straight through the fawning hypocrisy. Where were we all when she needed us to stand with her, for her, beside her? When Sinatra and the old guard condemned her, and the self-styled Madonna spurned her? What did you say when Dylan fans booed her in ’92, did you speak out then? Dylan fans, though, have a history of resisting the winds of change. Perhaps the hopes and dreams of a generation died along with JFK— or were buried at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis Tennessee? Maybe this slight figure with the voice of an angel was an unwelcome reminder, that they’d sold out to ‘The Man’ in the end? But those Dylan fans are no different from all the rest. A crowd, of course, is untameable, unpredictable. Hailing heroes one moment, only to crucify them the next then declare their undying love for the dead. She would have hated the herd mentality, for she walked the narrow road through stones that never broke her bones, but surely pierced her hurting heart. So we assuage our guilt or jump the bandwagon with our social-media posts of googled facts, our YouTube shares our limpid lamentations. We didn’t deserve her—any of us. But we mourn and miss her this fragile lioness of truth. Too late now to tell her she is loved, to leave futile bouquets of flowers. She can no longer hear us. But we need more than ever, to listen to her.
*
Gifford Savage is from Bangor, Northern Ireland. His poetry has appeared in a number of journals including The Storms, The Bangor Literary Journal, Agape Review, and previously in The New Verse News. He won the Aspects Festival Poetry Slam 2022.
splendid!! Thanks for this fine poem
Then declare their undying love for the dead. What a fine eulogy. Too late now. Bravo, Mr. Savage.