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Bear Sage
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2002
- Posts
- 1,461
Imagine If He’d Stayed
By Bear Sage
on what would have been John Lennon’s 85th
You gave the world
a chorus for peace
that still hums through headphones
on cracked subway walls.
A boy from Woolton,
sharp-tongued and unshaven,
trading fists for phrasing,
anger for anthems.
You weren’t always kind.
And maybe that’s what made the music true.
You bruised as much as you blessed.
Yoko saw it.
So did the silence
that followed your bullet.
We lit candles,
not because you were perfect,
but because you were unfinished.
Would you have stayed wild
or grown quieter,
grandfathered into revolution
with a softer edge?
Would you have dropped “Imagine”
into TikTok reels
or railed against the scroll
in a flurry of handwritten protests?
Would Paul still call
on your birthday?
Would you have laughed
at the imitators
singing peace like a password
while selling shoes?
Would you have said more
about fathers and sons
than you ever could in "Beautiful Boy"?
Or maybe you’d have wandered
into some obscure art phase
in Iceland
wearing a coat nobody understood,
finally content
to leave the screaming behind.
Whatever you might’ve been
is less than what you were
and more.
You left
mid-verse
mid-question
mid-change.
And the world
still sings you
in present tense.
