The Bells (1986): A Poem For Edge—By PJ
The Bells (1986)
PJ DeGenaro
A poem for Edge on his birthday.
Bell Machine, watercolor by Kelly Eddington, 2026. Based on a screenshot from Elevation 2001: U2 Live from Boston (specifically “a man takes a rocket ship into the skies”).
The Bells (1986)
Dear readers who’ve stuck with me all this time: I want to be clear that these poems aren’t always about the members of U2, but in honor of them. So this is just a small memory of being a college student during the years when U2 were still brand new and prolific. I think even the mundane memories we associate with the band can be interesting. - PJ
My father’s used car burned a can of oil every week
So I learned to buy cases of Quaker State
And replace it myself, every Saturday afternoon,
Wiping the dipstick carefully before and after.
I was twenty.
The old witch from the fourth floor didn’t like the car
Or my clothes or my haircut.
She didn’t want to see me in her parking lot.
She asked me: Did my widowed mother rent or own?
I didn’t care.
I couldn’t really hear her with the bells in my head.
Bells from Holy Redeemer too, if the wind blew the right way –
But those were just interference, not the real thing.
I had an eight a.m. class that winter,
Woke up in the dark to sleet battering my window.
Another parking lot – a nameless afterthought
Behind the athletic fields, potholed and crumbling,
But the easiest place to ensure a spot.
Then the long march toward campus
With the weather somehow always in your face.
The campanile was away off in the distance,
In the greener lands where the rich students walked,
But the bells were already in my head.
I dreamed I held my arm around your shoulders,
Supporting you while you played the most celestial notes.
You sang, hold on, and plucked a sudden light in the sky,
An opening.
And then the world was full of bells.