“Moonwalker” by Mark Kerstetter published in The Poeming Pigeon:Poems about Music, released November 12, 2016 by The Poetry Box.
Moonwalker
Long before our season of falling icons,
in a sky of purple rain we’d prepped to mourn
the passing of the Thin White Duke and cry, Never!
In fact we’d sidled up to goodbye for years,
some in silence, some with jeers.
Goodbye to the boy forever escaping
the cares of accountants’ careers,
the tabloids gaping and nose jobs botched,
to the dangling baby caught
by a single sequined glove
while German tourists watched in shock
and others for tastier fare than Thriller
sought answers for a boy, alone,
in Neverland.
Painkillers.
Million dollar-spending sprees
were not enough to recover the loss.
Never can say —
from Neverland to Bahrain,
from Megalomania Awards to Soul Train,
to the creature not meant for this world
and the moonwalker down below —
maybe a half century here
is just enough to know
the mirror in the man.
Today they unearthed a flute
more than thirty thousand years buried.
It belonged to a boy
just like you.
