Elvis Poem by Laurence Overmire

The King died
Some many years ago today
I didn’t know him very well
But a lot of people did
You can hear them now
Crying in the chapel
They’re all shook up
Loving you
And that old Kentucky rain
Falls silently now
In the Ghetto.

No
Don’t think I mock
His music and our very lives
Are
Intertwined
Sometimes indistinguishable one from the other
A tribute, rather,
I give this vagabond Prince
Who touched a generation
And left them weeping.

And singing.


(Previously published in Lynx Eye, Spring '99, Vol. VI, No.2)