Lifestyle Features

A dose of Dad

Could be verse: poetry ripped from the headlines

By JAMES PARKER | August 9, 2007

Lines upon learning that Keith Richards, though he did snort some of his deceased father’s ashes, did not — as was previously reported — chop them up with cocaine

Disequilibrium has been my calling:
I wrote my best riffs by slashing at guitars while falling.
I have mixed everything with everything, but Dad, your dust I would
not adulterate:
You, I sniffed up straight.

And the fierce and final modesty of ashes,
Stronger than 15 Jumping Jack Flashes,
Blew my mind: I was deeply moved.
I looked at myself in the mirror and, for the first time ever, disapproved.

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