Dreaming Jagger
- Diane Gottlieb
- May 28
- 1 min read
A poem by Diane Gottlieb
When I was fifteen, I fell in love
with Mick Jagger, I should have known better
than to buy tickets to a Stones tribute band at sixty.
The Mick of that band wore his hair in auburn dreadlocks! Worse,
there was more than ample meat on his bones. No
stick-skinny swagger, no jumping, no pointing, not one
hint of pout. Where were the moves of the man
who’d moved me? The audience
clapped without sound, tapped invisible feet, and
just as I was ready to pay my tab,
get off that miserable cloud
dreadlocked Not-Mick and his Not-Stones band played
You Can’t Always Get What You Want and the crowd,
this old, odd grouping, these sixty-and-seventy-something-
South-Floridian-snowbirds breathed as one. Our shoulders exhaled,
we threw back our drinks and swallowed
that God’s honest truth: No one gets what they want.
But those fierce fifteen-year-olds, those wild, wild horses,
still trampling on our hearts.
Still trying to get what they need.
Hear Diane read her poem:
Diane Gottlieb is the editor of Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, the forthcoming Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage and the Prose/Creative Nonfiction Editor of Emerge Literary Journal. Her writing appears in Brevity,Witness, Florida Review, River Teeth, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, among many other lovely places.
Image by Natalia Blauth
Brilliant. I vividly recall seeing "older" people being in attendance at concerts (at a time when I was much younger) and feeling faint disdain for them. Now I think, good for me! And also ... who cares?
....But those fierce fifteen-year-olds, those wild, wild horses,
still trampling on our hearts.
Still trying to get what they need. Spoke to my own wild, wild horses. Lovely words.
I love this! Thank you, Diane.