John Martyn

i.m. 1948-2009

 

In the picture-perfect scenery of Challes-les-Eaux

in seventy-five, locked in private darkness,

I played your lost indefinable music

on a tired loop of tape: Solid Air –

its title track an elegy for a friend you couldn’t save,

while you were destined to survive.

With a brawler’s zest for living,

you absorbed the booze and heartbreak.

 

When I heard you had died I found you

in the afterlife of YouTube, restraining tears

for grief you’d caused,

knowing your muse, Serendipity,

had always been a harsh one, that even now

there could have been no easier way.