Michael Lally, ca. 2008
The Night John Lennon Died
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One warm night, when I was a kid,
we were all playing ringalario in
the high school field at the bottom
of my street when Mrs. Murphy, known
mostly for the time her hair turned
purple when she tried to dye it, stuck
her head out the door and yelled across
the street to us, “Go on home now and be
quiet, Babe Ruth just died.” And we all
did go home where everything was somber
and serious and adult and strange,
worse than when one of the family died,
because then there were outbursts of
emotion as well as jokes and stories
and good drunken parties, but
the night Babe Ruth died, everyone
felt as sad as if it was a close close
friend or a sister or a brother,
but no one was really related so
there was no call for an actual Irish
wake or funeral party. I couldn’t help
remembering that night again, the
night John Lennon died. Nobody
threw a wake or a party where we
could all get drunk and high and
have a good cry together. We all
went home and wandered around our
rooms and heads looking for answers,
unable to sleep or forget or accept
or understand what had happened.
It had to be a mistake and it was,
a fucking senseless, horrible,
deadening mistake.
It’s hard to
recognize even the most familiar
things. I don’t know where I am
half the time, the other half I’m
flashing on some song or line or look
or attitude so close to my own
personal history I thought it was
mine. But it ain’t, cause it’s gone
with John and I feel like I got to
go do something now to spread a
little joy and loving and honest
fucking answers and questions about
the world I live in and the only times
we ever have, our own. I hope I’m
not alone.
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A former jazz musician, Hollywood actor, and radical organizer, New Jersey-born Michael Lally is first and foremost a poet. The author of more than thirty books of soulful, outspoken poems that have inspired many other artists, Lally writes with wry humor and the simple grace that is the mark of deep thought and conviction. He is the recipient of an American Book Award, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and other honors. Commenting on Lally’s landmark selected poems, Another Way to Play: Poems 1960-2017 (7 Stories Press, 2018), Charles Bernstein wrote: “Michael Lally’s risky, talky, autobiographic, ethnic, disarming, poignant, desperate, consoling, elegiac, wily, vernacular lyrics have been challenging the poetry world for half a century.”
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Thank you, Terence, for posting this poem and those perfectly chosen photos. And thanks for the memories, Mr Lally. I agree with Chas Bernstein's string of adjectives. -- DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | July 12, 2020 at 03:38 PM
One can say the night the music died, along with the poetry, along with our innocence, along with our hope. And then we come across a poem like this one and we are given a wake-up potion, made of love, and we think despite the killing of our hopes we can go on and must go on, loving and loving and loving. Thank you Michael. thank you Terence. Thank you Babe. Thank you John.
Posted by: Indran Amirthanayagam | July 12, 2020 at 07:36 PM
Truly resonates. I heard about Lennon’s death on the radio as I drove to Beltway U, one the several part time teaching jobs per day an adjunct prof awkwardly held. My students were shocked and derisive because I was crying. Sic semper whatever. Thanks terry and thanks Michael lalley
Posted by: Clarinda | July 12, 2020 at 09:57 PM
Wonderful poem! All the more special because this afternoon I came across--and reread--Michael Lally's terrific piece on Terence Winch in the June 1977 issue of The Poetry Project Newsletter (edited by Ted Greenwald). (I could make a PDF if anyone is interested).--Alan
Posted by: Alan Ziegler | July 12, 2020 at 10:14 PM
Michael’s poverty is both deeply and intensely personal - and Widely Universal. He has Gifted us with his Words. 💜
Posted by: Mim Kohn | July 13, 2020 at 08:06 AM
Thanks for your comment (and I know you mean "poetry" not "poverty").
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 10:07 AM
Thanks, Alan. That's great that you have Michael's piece from the newsletter. He and I have been best friends for a long time now.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 10:08 AM
Thanks, Clarinda. I also wept profusely when I heard the news of his death. A black day for the world.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 10:10 AM
You are so right, mon ami.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 10:10 AM
Thank you, DL.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 10:11 AM
Very interesting choice. Feels like one of Michael's most Frank O'Hara-like poems: Is it a conscious homage to "The Day Lady Died"? There's some writer, maybe Alberto Moravia, who says that there's a reason we don't remember life like a continuous film of everything that we ever done, but as a set of meaningful moments, because we can always step in and out of them--that's what life really is. not a chronology but that continual present. Or, uh, something like that.
Posted by: Bernard Welt | July 13, 2020 at 01:18 PM
Thanks for this excellent comment, Bernard. -- DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | July 13, 2020 at 01:47 PM
I wonder whether somehow you could post Lally on Winch from the June 1977 issue of the PPN. Say, wasn't that the month of your party on one side of the Atlantic, and the south of France, redolent with bougainvillea and broom, on the other? -- DL
Posted by: The Best American Poetry | July 13, 2020 at 01:49 PM
Terence:
What's the difference? ;)
Posted by: David Beaudouin | July 13, 2020 at 01:55 PM
Thank you, Bernard. Beautifully expressed.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 02:47 PM
Do I always have to explain everything to you, David?
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 02:50 PM
thanks to you Terence, and to all for the comments, and Bernie I wasn't thinking of O'Hara's poem though it is so much a part of me it couldn't help but influence me in some way...I first wrote about the Babe Ruth's death experience in a poem when I was 18 in 1960, it resonated so deeply in me as a kid because it was such a singular experience in my memory, until John...
Posted by: lally | July 13, 2020 at 03:53 PM
"...It’s hard to
recognize even the most familiar
things."
Yes, and this is why Michael's poetry is so vital.
Posted by: Kevin McCollister | July 13, 2020 at 04:12 PM
Thank you Terry for sending this poem out. It is a beauty--cuts through the boushwah with the patented Lally knife.
The day after Lennon's murder, I was on a train going through NYC from Boston on way to Philly to do research on Irish American writing. The train seemed to go in slow motion through the city. Weighed down by the sadness everyone felt. What an abomination, what a waste. All best to Terry, Michael and all their loved ones in these tough times.
Charlie Fanning
Posted by: Charles Fanning | July 13, 2020 at 06:12 PM
Thanks, Charlie. Great to hear from you.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 13, 2020 at 06:36 PM
I like the journey this poem takes us on, its shift in key a couple of times, including the nice hop into the last 15, 16 lines, when the speaker climbs out of the frame and/or steps forward in time, reflecting back on all he's shown and told us. Not to mention the compression, and the great shock of the wonderful Mrs. Murphy's announcement of Babe's passing not John's. The poem's rooted in this vivid opening dramatic scene before its heart opens out.
Posted by: Don Berger | July 13, 2020 at 06:43 PM
I like the journey this poem takes us on, its shift in key at a couple of places including the nice hop into the last 15,16 lines, when the speaker climbs out of the frame and steps forward in time to think back on what's happened. Not to mention the compression, everything each line holds, with melody, and the shock of the full-bodied scene where the great Mrs. Murphy announces Babe's death not John's. The poem's well rooted in the drama of these opening lines before its heart opens out.
Posted by: Don Berger | July 13, 2020 at 06:56 PM
Beautiful journey here, with great shifts in key at a couple of points including the nice hop into the final 15,16 lines, where the speaker climbs out of the frame stepping forward in time to reflect on all that's happened. Not to mention the compression, what each line holds, with melody, plus the pleasing shock of Mrs. Murphy's announcement of Babe's passing not John's. The poems well rooted in these vivid dramatic opening lines, before its heart opens out.
Posted by: Don Berger | July 13, 2020 at 07:02 PM
I love the Babe Ruth - John Lennon parallels and myths and the soft journey of this poem., especially now as we are without baseball
and without John Lennon.
Thank you -- Karen
Posted by: Karen Sagstetter | July 14, 2020 at 11:42 AM
Thanks for your comment, Karen.
Posted by: Terence Winch | July 14, 2020 at 12:44 PM