Four Transcendental Grandmothers

I had just got my hands on the new ‘Sergeant Pepper’ album. The four girls that lived above my flat were notified by jungle drums. Soon we were six, my pal Roger with his blonde Mexican mustache and shoulder length hair came over. We sat around a portable record player, passing the album cover around and swaying to the music filling the room with prayerful smoke. Roger took Diane to her room. Michelle took me behind the curtained alcove, Isobel and Maggie got it on together. By the time we had done with the music we had long disbanded the lonely hearts club band. Roger died from the hole he had dug in the London drug scene; he was living large until the rains came in. One grandmother lived long enough to see Lennon shot, one lived on to hear of Harrisons stabbing. The last grandmother (ma belle), she who broken heartedly adored Paul, died listening to her signature tune. I know this because the Maharishi Yogi came to me in a dream. He was seated transcendentally on top of a multicolored Rolls Royce surrounded by happy, singing, nubile, naked grandmothers. None of them looked old, the girls were playing with children, laughing, and just as cool as ever. When I awoke, sad to tell, the music had already walked away on Cuban-heels and rubber souls.