Thirty years since spring
turned into grass and heady dusk
your leather forte, but what strikes
me now is how the news can never
(re)capture in spirit a reckless look
the night you sang at Freddie’s tribute
light years ahead of us. Old songs to still
discover hocked to friendships fast
long faded. Still so young George Michael,
but weren’t we spectacular? So confident
in the knowledge, yours were the hits,
while ours were the latter-day Matinees.
Resplendent in R and B, how our bodies
responded to a particular word like dance
or pray. Is this how one sees an age
coming to an end, good times that had far
more in common with bad than the towns
we grew up in. Not so easy to admit
for every choice, each self-inflicted
wound one hearkens to a warning beauty
still. Those fields calling back into a wood
near Athens, Psyche’s mistress
in school uniform, while Puck rides
rampant back in places
where we had no way
of knowing.
Jonathan Jones
Our Latter-Day Matinees: Ode to George Michael
About the Author
Jonathan Jones lives and works in Rome where he teaches at John Cabot University. He has a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Sapienza, and a novella, My Lovely Carthage, recently published in the Spring of 2020 from J. New Books.