My Role in Killing John Lennon

I got accused of being an accessory
To killing John Lennon
Back in 1980.
Unconsciously accused.
42 years ago, if you trust
The math with its absurd
Little hidden messages
About Critical Race Theory
And grassy knoll bullshit.
The charges against me
Are rigged and absurd
And I have dismissed them
As the ramblings
Of a guilty conscience.
I loved John Lennon.
 
Here’s how it came down:
I was hanging out  
With some radical Christians
In Kapi’olani Park,
With the 15 or 20 of them
Reading the Bible,
Swear to god,
At least eight hours a day.
Me? I couldn’t do it,
But they had great weed,
And I found it surreal
To smoke the shit
In a holy stupor
And ponder such imponderables
As Isaiah 45: 7
Where Yahweh essentially admits
To being Satan and God
At the same time.
I mean, like, whoa!
When did they put that verse in?
 
So the Hare Krishna food truck
Started coming down
With free paper plates of food
In the evenings
And I was into it.
The Christians were greatly offended
And were thumping Bibles
And yelling verses.
How dare these pagan weirdos
Feed the poor and hungry?
 
Why not, I thought.
So as they were yammering away
I stood up and screamed a few
Obscene verses myself,
Just to sort of cancel out
My heresy of eating food
Dedicated to pagan deities.
“Destroy your idols!” I screamed.
“Not to mention  
He that pisseth against the wall.”
You know, comic effect.
 
I ran the Honolulu Marathon
A few days later on December 7th
And the following day
Mark David Chapman
Destroyed his idol
In New York City.
 
I made no connection, naturally,
Until this one Christian hanger-on
Came up to me months later
And said the Christians
Had convinced Chapman
To return to NYC
And finish the job.
 
“How so,” I demanded.
 
The guy said,
“Well, Mark was a cool dude,
Used to come down here
And hang out. Quiet dude.
Loved the Lord.
Before your time, Mr. D.
 
Went to NYC the first time
To kill his idol, John Lennon, but didn’t.
Came back and told  
Gloria, his wife,
That he had won a great victory
Over Satan, that he had prayed
For a sign to kill or not to kill
And that no sign had come.
He returned to Honolulu, victorious.
 
But then he was sitting in the crowd
Not long after
When the Krishnas started coming down
To feed the sinners
And some asshole yelled,
“Destroy your idols!”
Mark took that as a sign from god.
 
He flew back to New York the next day
And finished the job.
Who was he to disobey the Lord?”
 
I told him, “Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.”
And he walked off, a little offended.
 
But anyway, that’s what happened,
What was told to me.
 
And to this day, nearly 42 years later,
I can’t find a verse in the Bible
Which says those exact words,
“Destroy your idols.”
 
But I guess it was
Close enough.
 
Written 11 July 2022