John Lennon in the Porto Santo Stefano

Narrated by Bill Wolak

New Jersey

John Lennon in the Porto Santo Stefano

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

 

A trattoria in the porto:

an astonishingly beautiful couple enters

in shorts

He’s got a fantastic torso

long hair and a golden headband

She’s got long flaxen hair

German hippies maybe

Bourgeois back home

Another couple saunters in and joins them

Dark hair and jeans

Comme ils son beaux

Not one of them is gay

Though he’s the most beautiful

He’s got such a smile

Some story he’s telling

What could it be

Something about John Lennon

lost in a mix of Tuscan and German

Comme elle est belle

with her empty eyes

the Germans very spaced out

the Italians very “with it”

But none of them look very happy

Perhaps it’s just youth

I am trying to think of a Lennon line

To sum up the situation

There isn’t any

He didn’t live long enough to give us

the mad eternal answer