Prayer to Kurt Cobain

According to the gospel of Bob, John, Bruce and Jay-Z,
and the gods and goddesses of the People’s Choice Awards,
you are always with me, you always pay the rent,
retirement doesn’t suit you, that was just bad management.

But you might as well have been Mayakovski dividing
the loaves of your brain for the masses, because whatever you were
has become little more than road kill on the next Hole tour,
your obit’s photo among the host in The New Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

So it’s all I can do to find you on this gas pedal beachhead,
where you are orphaned like the love child of Kennedy and Monroe,
in cheap pop remakes and power chord classics and the parts
that matter most to me are always lost on Rock’s killing floor.

When I look for you I sometimes see the curled lip of the sun
doing Elvis in a white sequined jumpsuit of clouds,
the King’s mime karate silvering the air like jet engines,
the molten core of that voice soaring in me again.

I call to you across every river and canyon,
but your Elvis is my Evil Knievel
taking a leap of faith in the Sky Cycle.

Oh Brother, where art thou?
Here we are now, entertain us.

© Steven M. Critelli

Published by the Stone Canoe: A Journal of Arts, Literature and Social Commentary, No. 9 (Syracuse University February 2015).