Love and Mercy On Summer's Day
by Michael Doyle

In these lean times of heroes and villains found
On the dirty streets of LA traveled around,
He fell into the cliche of cause and correlation.
Addiction to unheard sounds became an attraction.

There inside the labyrinth of Brian's tortured soul,
He sought after but only sometimes gained control.
Stream of consciousness is the life we live in,
And there's so much unintentional to be forgiven. 

When I was young, I found love and mercy on a summer's day,
It was found in the vinyl to which I would sing and play.
Mesmerized by the lay of every note right in its pocket to hear,
There was a special kind of magic in the songs I held dear.

Brian Wilson's tunes were more than just simple imitation,
They were masterpieces that were majestic in their creation.
This was especially true of the pet sounds beyond simplicity,
It was the charted course into modern music's complicity. 

Drones of endless noise and snippets of well-meaning speech
Brought the Muse closer to madness and its slippery reach.
There was something there like an internal lotus unfolding.
A meditative stranglehold revealed the hand felt scolding.

Tonight, under the closeness of June's Strawberry Moon,
I sang his songs loudly at the thought they ended too soon.
But isn't that the way it is when we feel the music inside?
It has to come out because there is really nowhere to hide.

It seems it's the scars we grow along our life's journey
That edges us ever closer toward the happenstance of destiny.
From 1966, there were no one-off singles for the maestro,
And finally, he's taken his last bow before he turned to go.

(c) June 11, 2025  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved