Beatlemania

~ qbit 
Paul McCartney called me on the phone. Who does that?? – phone people up without texting or emailing in advance. I’d been asleep and no I wasn’t really in the mood. I shake it off. OK, Hey Paul.

He thought I should build a barn from the Norwegian Wood, it was all just sitting under a tarp behind his castle, Maybe it would look cool, and a place for birds to nest.

Did I still have that blackbird’s song packed away in my boxes? A tweet before Twitter, the dead of night wrapped in newspaper, a bird’s tongue folded under scotch tape, the way you tape together screws from a bed when you move.

What time is it over there anyway? If you had to pick a Beatle phone friend, would it be Paul or Ringo? I’m glad John doesn’t hit me up with that ghost thing. Probably saves it for Yoko and she collects his wisps. Tacks them  to her canvases, paints them black.

I think George actually leveled up his Dharma or whatever, so nobody’s going to find him creeping around their living room at night.

But Paul wants to rehash if Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da is oblong mathematical four-space – a tesseract. Topology and Fourier transforms always come up. Few people understand the elegant proofs in Nowhere Man, his demonstration of the existence of non-existence. 

We talk through the leaks in Yesterday, which let time exhaust like losing heat from cracks in a window. So never today. Never tomorrow. We’re always short, never get there, which explains a lot.

Why me? He said he picked my name out of a phone book in Boston when he was touring with Wings, playing at the old Garden. Sometimes we talk once a week, sometimes I don’t hear from him since forever. He gets lonely.

I hear the coffee maker go off, time to get ready for work, Here Comes the Sun. Sadness wheels round like an old LP scratched by love, turning around the hole in our hearts, Revolver, memory wracked on a spindle of years. Hello Goodbye.

For Shay’s Word Garden

21 thoughts on “Beatlemania”

  1. THIS is BRILLIANT! The concept, the story, the ache in the closing stanza, which I carry around with me like something grafted on, or in. A fantastic read!!!!!!! I love it.

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  2. Love this ramble, qbit! Especially the bit about Yoko catching John’s wisps, tacking them onto her canvases and painting them black 🙂

    Sidenote: have you seen the film Yesterday? It’s on Netflix. About how all the Beatles songs disappeared from the world except for one guy who remembered them and tried to pass them off as his own? It’s hilarious, I think you’d like it. Your poem reminded me irresistibly of that.

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  3. This takes me back to Jr High when I first fell in love with the Beatles. I hear and feel them in your poem.

    “Did I still have that blackbird’s song packed away in my boxes? A tweet before Twitter, the dead of night wrapped in newspaper, a bird’s tongue folded under scotch tape, the way you tape together screws from a bed when you move.” Love this stanza

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  4. You took me back to the days of the Beatles!! I think I would like a phone call from Paul. Smiles. These were my favorite lines: “Sadness wheels round like an old LP scratched by love, turning around the hole in our hearts,” Those words really got to my heart…how we played those LP’s again and again and again.

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  5. haha – Well, today I ventured out and turned on Sirius classic rock and the out comes “Instant Karma” (We All Shine On) Needless to say the volume is instantly turned up and I am cruising singing at the top of my lungs. Thank goodness the windows were up as it is cold here. But, there is a huge message there, my friend. So, yeah John talked to me today.

    Well, we all shine on
    Like the moon and the stars and the sun
    Well, we all shine on

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  8. One rarely expects a call from a Beatle, though it can happen occasionally. This usually leads to a cascade of events and emotions, passing through brilliance, enjoying some easy fun, and finally around Christmastime, smashing one’s telephone or radio out of sheer fury.

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