you were young then
and music was all
walked on sand
and never felt it shift
under bare feet
brown and shiny
like new pennies and
just as lost
you believed you were
vulnerable to nothing
the north winds couldn’t
chill the limbs that ran
after love and life

first heartbreak left you
raw and bleeding from
a thousand tiny holes
the shock of pain
how could it feel like
that the songs never
told you but still you
listened to the radio
in the night and looked
out the window wishing
and hoping the brown
haired guitar player
would explain it all

turns out he was not
a god but mortal like
the rest of us
the government
unimpressed by his
truths decided that
Viet Nam was his
next venue
he bled from
a thousand tiny holes
the shock of his death
a cold north wind
on limbs that ran

the musician was made up.  The rest of course, was not.