The Poetry Hour

[rowrrbazzle]

Lyrics to Madeira, M’dear by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.

She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice,
She was fair, she was sweet seventeen.
He was old, he was vile, and no stranger to vice,
He was base, he was bad, he was mean.
He slyly inveigled her up to his flat
To view his collection of stamps
And he said as he hastened to put out the cat, the wine, his cigar and the lamps:

‘Have some madeira, M’dear
You realy have nothing to fear
I’m not trying to tempt you, that wouldn’t be right
You shouldn’t drink spirits at this time of night
Have some madeira, M’dear
It’s very much nicer than beer
I don’t care for sherry, one cannot drink stout
and port is a wine I can well do without
It’s simply a case of Chacun à son gout
Have some madeira, M’dear!’

Unaware of the wiles of the snake in the grass
The fate of the maiden who topes
She lowered her standards by raising her glass
Her courage, her eyes and his hopes.
She sipped it, she drank it, she drained it, she did
He quietly refilled it again
And he said, as he secretly carved one more notch
on the butt of his gold-handled cane;

‘Have some Madeira, M’dear
I’ve got a small cask of it here.
And once it’s been opened, you know it won’t keep
Do finish it off, it’ll help you to sleep
Have some Madeira, M’dear
It’s really an excellent year
Now if it were Gin you’d be wrong to say yes
The evil gin does would be hard to assess
Besides, it’s inclined to affect me prowess
Have some Madeira, M’dear!’

Thek flashed through her mind what her mother has said
with her antepenultimate breath;
‘Oh, My child, if you look on the wine that is red
then prepare for a fate worse than death!’
She let go the glass with a shrill little cry
Crash! Tinkle! It fell to the floor
When he asked ‘What in heaven?’ she made no reply,
Up her mind, and a dash for the door.

‘Have some Madeira, M’dear’
Rang out down the hall, loud and clear
A tremulous cry that was filled with despair
As she paused to take breath in the cool midnight air,
‘Have some Madeira, M’dear!’
The words seemed to ring in her ear,
Until the next morning, she woke up in bed
With a smile on her lips and an ache in her head
And a beard in her earhole that tickled and said
‘Have some Madeira, M’dear!’

[Peta_Tzunami]

Moving Day
One of the many works of Peta Tzunami

Written to a painting by Hopper - (7/11/96)

The car’s loaded
and they’re all waiting on me,
but I’m glued to this spot
staring at the shadowed, empty corner
where my big teddy bear used to sit.
Whenever you’d look in that corner,
at that bear, you could
always see just the slightest bit
of yellow fringe from the rug
tucked beneath his left foot.

And that window.
It looks so
alone…
and naked.
I know that my rocker goes there–
beside that lonely window.
It goes there
so I can sit rocking
on hot summer nights
staring at the black, star-studded sky
and be cooled by the gentle breeze
and by thoughts of the big maple tree
just outside it
(turning golden, maroon and brown)
as the autumn tiptoes in.

The last thing I picked up
was that red bouncy ball…
Dad gave it to me for my birthday
when I was five.
I remember it so clearly because
he wrapped it in this huge box
so I wouldn’t guess what it was…
Then I drove mom crazy with it,
bouncing it everywhere–
until that unfortunate toilet incident.
After that,
I could only play with it outside.

Everything looks so stark and dusty
as if I’d never even been here…
But I have to go now.
they’re all waiting in the car.
How long can I keep them waiting?
They’ll ask with a chuckle,
“What happened? Did you fall in?”

[Finagle]

April Inventory
W. D. Snodgrass

The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven’t learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.
The blossoms snow down in my hair;
The trees and I will soon be bare.

The trees have more than I to spare.
The sleek, expensive girls I teach,
Younger and pinker every year,
Bloom gradually out of reach.
The pear tree lets its petals drop
Like dandruff on a tabletop.

The girls have grown so young by now
I have to nudge myself to stare.
This year they smile and mind me how
My teeth are falling with my hair.
In thirty years I may not get
Younger, shrewder, or out of debt.

The tenth time, just a year ago,
I made myself a little list
Of all the things I’d ought to know,
Then told my parents, analyst,
And everyone who’s trusted me
I’d be substantial, presently.

I haven’t read one book about
A book or memorized one plot.
Or found a mind I did not doubt.
I learned one date. And then forgot.
And one by one the solid scholars
Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars.

And smile above their starchy collars.
I taught my classes Whitehead’s notions;
One lovely girl, a song of Mahler’s.
Lacking a source-book or promotions,
I showed one child the colors of
A luna moth and how to love.

I taught myself to name my name,
To bark back, loosen love and crying;
To ease my woman so she came,
To ease an old man who was dying.
I have not learned how often I
Can win, can love, but choose to die.

I have not learned there is a lie
Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger;
That my equivocating eye
Loves only by my body’s hunger;
That I have forces true to feel,
Or that the lovely world is real.

While scholars speak authority
And wear their ulcers on their sleeves,
My eyes in spectacles shall see
These trees procure and spend their leaves.
There is a value underneath
The gold and silver in my teeth.

Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives,
We shall afford our costly seasons;
There is a gentleness survives
That will outspeak and has its reasons.
There is a loveliness exists,
Preserves us, not for specialists.
From Heart’s Needle by W. D. Snodgrass,