So Long, Marianne

 

While not written for you that special song itself speaks
For lovers across all persuasions, addicted no doubt
To the heart, and how it survives when set against such divisions

So much so that blood itself becomes  beauty, as sad screeds
For love boil through Art. Chanteuse for the rich, you once railed
At a wall having broken; shattered by fame and attention,

In rolling some stones you gained moss, under your fingers
And thumbs and along each vein. You’d surrendered.
Your voice which was sweet air, soon coarsened and grained.

Grime scraped gloss. You were a 60s heroine for the young,
Despite slightly aristocratic origins, before heroin’s golden
Browned breath then claimed you and Sister Morphine

Herself sucked on dreams. Did those comfort you, 
Marianne of St. Anne’s Court, stuck in Soho, or were such sights
The burden borne by you through death’s scheme? At one time

They all wanted you. Yet 20th Century Blues was your soundtrack.
The angelic face. The whore’s body; yours was Brecht and Weill’s
Threepenny Opera squandered and spent by fate’s thief.

As your own Black Freighter was docked and your jilted Jenny
Stayed grounded. Mick as Macheath couldn’t claim you,
But then again nor could Keith. Or John Dunbar, or Nick,

So, the Princess had to pull herself from the gutter.
Evolved, and emboldened, you made Broken English
The themetune of the Phoenix that flies from failed fame.

Barry Reynolds and Heathcote soon helped. ‘Why’d Ya Do it?’
Alone stains all angels. It is the song of cocks and cunts
As they chorus for the spirit of sex and hex across flame.

And then you were back. Post Punk. A new movement.
Made of one woman who gave the English Rose nippled thorns.
A sensation through songs. The stylus scratches skin

As we play it; be it Silverstein’s Lucy Jordan, or the great track
Guilt. You’re reborn. To become the Artist you sought
While being consort to others. Not even Andrew Loog Oldham

Could mar you as you moved from Mars Bar to fine wine
Vintaging across verse, written for you, or by you;
From Badalamenti to Waters, from Albarn and Cave,

You combined Porter, Coward and Weill, to rear
A one woman era; what emerged from smoke and sex
Clouded angels, who were not removed from desire,

But who were wiser than words. Your soul growled.
But it will be softened once more, soothed by the love
You engendered. The Girl on the Motorbike has been

Grounded, but Irinia Palm, who (in defiance of your beauty
and glamour) seemed dowdy, but gave such sweet relief
To the fouled.  Your Ophelia singed. As you did in Stephen Weeks’

Ghost Story. From Edward Bond to Munch screaming
You were the source and sound of the wronged.
You covered Heathcote Williams’ Abductee.

 

You recited Keats and Byron and Shelley.
You will sing anew. You are singing behind another
Wall now, star sent songs. So Long, Marianne.

Let David Lynch now direct you. You were and are
The same age. Both eternal. I can  almost hear Heathcote’s
Lyric or see his screenplay. It is to that prized production

That we all aspire. Like him, you sail now on far fire.
And that is part of a cast, craft and creation 
That all of us wish to belong. 

 

 

                                                                      David Erdos 31/1/25

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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