Amy Winehouse would have been celebrating her 40th birthday today. I wrote this poem soon after her death in 2011 as part of my ‘Side One’/’Side Two’ collection of the time drawing on my favourite music artists. Of course, I never met her or even saw her perform live, but tried to imagine what she might write That was the concept of that collection at the time – try and write in the style of the artist named or at least use them as inspiration for the poem.
Crinkled headlines on my forehead showing my tabloid age, your front pages only had time for me when you were in my face. So, now I’m memorable and kind of unforgettable I’ve gone to another place.
Stars like me fall they say ‘cos we get so high but stars like me shine in the big black sky. I wasn’t always a picture of happiness but you know what nor were you even at your best.
I had a great voice. One of those inexplicable things that weren’t my choice. So, as this circus waits for my posthumous third album release for all my faults I’ll have to flop in the charts before you’ll let me half Rest In Peace.
Thanks to my family. Thanks to my friends. Thanks to my fans. This is where the story ends. Nobody has the right to write about me, especially a nobody who never knew me like you! Only each and every one of us can understand what each and every one of us goes through.
John Di Girolamo was born during the swinging middle ages as the Battle of Hastings raged outside on a cold, miserable Saturday evening just outside 'The Juggler's Arms' in Oxford, Torquay and Exeter at the same time. Born to a family, he spent most of his early years learning how to open umbrellas for a rainy day, and the runnings of horses and sword swallowers and the costs they incurred. Having graduated in 'Circus Management', he took to spinning plates for a living and persuaded his father to buy a restaurant to fund what he believed would be a lucrative career move. However, in the the days leading to The Age of Post Punk', he quit and would embark upon what was to go down in history doodles as a notebook.
Few knew it then but he had already started copying poetry, and often written by other people. As the minutes passed by, and Sardinia loomed, the idea of collages and drawings suddenly hit him as a way of filling up what had become a kind of book with pages and all. One day while storming off in a huff because his mum told him to, he struck upon the idea of putting it all together over a long-playing record (later a CD) and during a commercial break in the digital age, decided a blog would end Cromwell's ill-fated republic.
Sent off by recorded post, it would be by chance that his poems would get to their ultimate destination as, meanwhile, his pigeon who had queued so loyally for so long, sadly died the day before it was sacked.
View more posts
A Pretty Kettle of Poetry 