The BeeGees Poem

On Finding Out the BeeGees own the Priory where Joan of Arc was Sentenced to Death I Write a Poem using 40 titles of their No. 1 Hits

(I'm posting this in honor of Robin Gibb's announcement of his battle with cancer. Thanks, songman for songs that always cheer me up! The BeeGees are the only band to have number ones in five decades.)

It was God whom she needed to show how deep
was her love, and for one night only, spirits
having flown, she was named guilty, doomed

to stand, sticks and specks, against the flames'
shadow dancing. Did she think, did she hear
alone the melody, through the still waters of

her timeless, god-connected mind for whom the
bell still tolls, knowing a love so right, the words
in the night, in the night we love, we know how

to do it? Did a horn section blast out the hard beats,
shout out as the ropes lashed her wrists, the words
nobody gets too much heaven no more? Did she

expect to get saved by the greatest bell? I just want
to be your everything, God has said, demanding that
we the little islands in the stream invite his jive talking

in exchange for the sort of immortality that often has
come too soon. You win again, the saints must always say.
Don't forget to remember, instructs God, before letting his

words of "you and I," heard one night only through the still
waters of the mind, feeling like ESP, disappear like a woman
consumed by fire. This is where I came in, says God,

running down a list of Number Ones who answered,
served and died, as the world saw a new morning, and alone
now tries still, shouting from beyond: I've gotta get a message

to you, crying out, singing: If I can't have you I don't want
nobody, baby. And God shouts back, Love you inside out
but we, still thinking we are islands in the stream, like Juliet's

Romeo don't get the message in time. And while this may indeed
sound like a tragedy, love still is so much thicker than water.
Great spirits have flown, having learned how can you mend

a broken heart. And the answer has always been to keep
stayin' alive, and know even among the flames that consume
you like a Saturday Night Fever, you should, like you started

a joke, for the record, in Massachusetts, anywhere, like a
ghetto supasta, no matter what your lonely days, lonely nights
may leave you, you should be dancin'. Yeah.

Comments

Mark Butkus said…
Inventive! I was going to mark this number two with a bullet as I was looking for the only listenable song by the Brothers Gibb...you shot up to the top of the charts with the next to last line.
This was a fun read...thanks for the smile.
8:46 AM
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