The Day Amy Died

OK, I know it's been a week since we heard the news of our dearly departed Amy Winehouse, and I know the essence of new media thrives on the short attention spans and rapid boredom of audiences--we all know the 140 characters or less on the shooting in Norway we'll find on Twitter is all we'll need to know, so we can skip the AC 360. In short, what happened last week is usually no longer in vogue today.  On to the next one.  And I am certainly aware of how often writers try to emulate the styles of other writers (read any column from the week J.D. Salinger died to find Holden Caulfield), especially someone like Frank O'Hara, and especially this poem, which you will instantly recognize if you haven't already figured it out (who's my readership?  Anyone?).  Here goes:

It is 12:58 in Boston a Saturday
a week and two days after Bastille day, yes
it is 2011 and I’m shelving books
because I’m here until 4:00 at the store
at 6:30 I will get you and go straight to Lowell for a party
and I don’t know who else will be there

I walk down Moody St. now becoming humid
and I smoke a cigarette and unlock my door
and continue reading PUSH to witness the disintegration
of lives of the black and underprivileged in Harlem back in those days
                                                I go on to the liquor store
and see Keir (husband of Kelly) out in back
of the Fusion and I wonder if he recognizes me and
if he does if he’d know who I was
and in Ricci’s I get some Corona Light
for the hot day, no limes, although I do
think of the Magic Hat or perhaps the High Life,
the Champagne of beers, but I don’t, I stick with the Corona
after practically going to sleep to the breeze of the fan

and for Jay I pick up some Andy Capp’s
though I know I’ll probably just eat them
then go back to my car parked in back of Main St.
by the Mobil gas station down the street from the mall
where I casually go in and ask if your discount
still applies to sale items

and you look pale and you swallow and my stomach
has gone upside down by now and thinking of
a couch to lie on in the living room
while she trumpeted or whispered a song
to Mark Ronson and everyone and I stopped breathing

So, what I've written isn't exactly how I heard the news, but I've used poetic license because I can.  And this is in no way an insult or parody, nor is it meant to detract from the similar yet individual lives and deaths of Lady Day and Amy.  Simply, despite her public antics and personal demons (on which Russell Brand sympathetically and beautifully comments here: http://www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/), she was a supreme talent whose music has been, and will continue to be, greatly admired.  And like all great art, it will be often imitated and, unfortunately, has its genesis in pain.  She will be missed.