Happy Thanksgiving, Gentle Readers! Posts at this site appear when they're funded, so here's the first of three posts for the holiday weekend.
This bit of Bad Poetry was written a few weeks ago, before glyphosate awareness took over my entire online life. It's a mash-up of two different writing prompts: poem using five particular words (see the ongoing poetry challenge at http://www.obheal.ie/blog/five-words-poetry-competition/ ), and true story about a K-12 teacher...the first time I remember being able to imagine an Older Person having ever been young. She giggled at the Frenchified way "schottische" was pronounced on the record, like a kid, and then demonstrated the dance step, like a teenager.)
This bit of Bad Poetry was written a few weeks ago, before glyphosate awareness took over my entire online life. It's a mash-up of two different writing prompts: poem using five particular words (see the ongoing poetry challenge at http://www.obheal.ie/blog/five-words-poetry-competition/ ), and true story about a K-12 teacher...the first time I remember being able to imagine an Older Person having ever been young. She giggled at the Frenchified way "schottische" was pronounced on the record, like a kid, and then demonstrated the dance step, like a teenager.)
The pallid teacher drawls and drones,
a slug of flab that shows no bones.
We children lean back on our spines
considering how many lines
of penalty prayer might incur—
“God, let me never grow like her.”
To set a mood of long ago,
she puts a disc on the stereo:
Dalglish and McCutcheon join
to clap and whoop and toss a coin
when Old Mike plays his concertina
and tells of colder times and leaner.
Lights ripple on the flat black disc.
Though Mike is old, his tunes are brisk.
He played such tunes in cheap bars where
the drinkers breathed more smoke than air
while dancing on the peanut shells
that helped soak up the spills and smells,
pipe and suspenders, swirling skirt,
they drank so much they tried to flirt.
The teacher demonstrates a step
and for an instant verve and pep
enliven her; she might be tall;
her forty-inch waist might be small,
her hair both thick and dark again;
her eyes flash to long-gone young men.
Her worn-out sneakers have both springs
and pivots that the music brings.
The old were young once, I’ve heard said,
and now believe.—The moment’s fled.
The woman stands again, and slumps.
Her back forms secondary humps
above, below; her clothing’s puckered;
eight quick steps each way leave her tuckered.
Louder our little prayer wheels whir,
God, let me never grow like her,
who for a moment showed that she
was pert and musical as we.
It was a pleasant surprise to find copies of the album featured in this reminiscence on Amazon--for prices Michael Kennedy would never have believed.
It was a pleasant surprise to find copies of the album featured in this reminiscence on Amazon--for prices Michael Kennedy would never have believed.
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