So Phil Spector is dead, then,
crazy fuck, musical magician,
engineer of walls
that Trump could never build.
To know him was to love him,
before he became an unhinged melody.
He was the Wagner of electric excess, the
little corporal of the recording studio.
Inducing hard-ons in teen jeans
and nipples standing to attention under polyester blouses.
But stoned and sodden,
flailing,
demented,
he played god one time too many.
Farewell, then, spectral Phil.
For a while all your stars were shining bright
and then you killed us.
Roy Isacowitz (with thanks to EJ Gordin, 12 ½)