Allen Ashley

Bobcat
 
You had the magic early on
taking the baton from King Woody
as he lay in his hospital bed,
then marching with Martin
and cooing and crooning
with Joanie.
 
Thousands of miles from home
you turned electric
and they called you “Judas”.
You drowned them with your majestic
words and cross-cultural
sounds. Again and again.
 
Genius, innovator, inspiration –
many others echoed
or paid homage to your call.
Jimi turned your Biblical words
into a rage against the killing machine
of the Vietnam War.
 
You lost your magic
at some point when
the endless touring
fractured your voice
into little more than
speech patterns like spat
out cuss words.
 
Refusing the guitar,
standing behind a keyboard
as if you’re just another member
of the band.
 
Rearranging your love ballads
and your calls to arms
so that even the devotees
take half a song to recognise
the song they sort of recognise.
 
But you’re not just another member
of the band.
 
The burden of history becomes,
in another light,
a mountain of creativity.
Answers carried on the wind
if only we continue
to listen.
 

 
Allen Ashley is the founder of the advanced science fiction and fantasy group Clockhouse London Writers. His work has recently been published in the anthologies “No More Heroes” (PS Publishing, 2021), “Infectious Hope” (IFWG, 2021) and “Vital Signals” (NewCon Press, 2022) as well as online at “Sein und Werden,” “Mono,” and “the World of Myth.” www.allenashley.com