Mr Paganini goes on the tiles

(A silly fable written to a prompt over at the wonderful Poetic Bloomings site.)

As Paganini stumbled
Through the ancient stable door
His haughty countenance crumbled
Before the congregation on that floor.

A dozen stallions strong and fleet
Were breathing on his nose
While all around his trembling feet
Stood arching rows…

Of cats! Their green eyes blinking
With a look so fierce and bright
That Paganini started thinking
They were spoiling for a fight.

The atmosphere grew bolder
As a Siamese stalked near
And jumped up on his shoulder
To whisper in his ear,

“It’s come to our august attention
That your musical career
Has caused too much pain to mention
For the members gathered here.

The bow you boast is magical
To spin music without fail
Is only fully functional
At the cost of a flowing tail,

While the singing strings you love to stroke
To drive the ladies nuts
Can only really be baroque
Thanks to someone’s mother’s guts!”

A noisy chorus raised the roof
Of that bucolic dive
Presenting him the awful proof
He’d not escape alive

The violinist trembled
And sank down to his knees
Before all those assembled
Mewing pitifully, “Please!...”

But the angry crowd came forth in packs
With cries of “hiss!” and “neigh!”
And on a hundred hairy backs
They carried him away

Ten miles, before they cut him loose
With a note clear and nefarious:
“Leave off your animal abuse,
Or we’ll bust your Stradivarius!”

Next morning he awakened
In an empty country lane;
His night had left him shaken,
He swore he’d never drink again.

But just as a matter of careful course
After this nocturnal spat
He lavished sugar on his horse
And was nice to every cat.

To a certain bird

A rush of silver
Was your final gift to me.
Then awful silence.
On the step, your eyes slid shut
As my heart begged you to stay.

Pumping Iron

We started pumping iron on the porch
The summer that our river burst its banks.

He stood in the driveway with his shirt off
Glistening like a sword drawn from the sea,

Shouting, I am strong now. What have you left
To offer, old man, before I slay you?

Eye-to-eye we fought to keep our balance
Two strangers astride the Leviathan

Each one thrilled and yet terrified. It was
Blood-lust and it was hubris that tossed us

Until we washed up on our backs, arms raised
And flexed and raised again without talking.

Something’s blocking the sun, I said at last.
Your pride, he spat. No, I smiled, your biceps.

Recital

I don’t know where your black shoes are.
We don’t have time to curl your hair
At this point, my dear, I really don’t care
Just grab your stuff and get in the car.

Why do we do this to ourselves each May,
This ritual humiliation we call the recital?
Can this two-hour battle of flesh versus machine be as vital
To our children’s development as their teachers say?

Leave your sister alone, you unrepentant brat!
Can’t you see she’s having nervous fits
About the middle section of this piece? It’s got her scared to bits.
And don’t say that dress makes her look fat.

Look, I love soccer, but I wouldn’t love it more if you made me
Take a penalty in front of a thousand people, for crying out loud.
Why can’t these poor frightened souls be allowed
To play for fun at home instead of out where everyone else can see?

Oh gosh, there’s your grandma in the second row.
All her friends from church have come along
To hear you play your two-finger version of a patriotic song.
You’d better stop your tears, or all the makeup stains will show.

I’m all for music lessons, please don’t get me wrong. I’m quite aware
They teach us discipline, which is of course right and good.
But somewhere I think we crossed the line, and what could
Have been encouraging to kids has instead become a collective nightmare.

There she is, under the lights. She looks so innocent
Sitting on the piano stool, preparing to do violence
To America the Beautiful. In her defense
The outfit’s pretty, even if her playing’s only twenty-five percent.

You show me a gifted pianist playing Chopin out his mind,
I’ll see your smug little prodigy and raise you
Five hackers lurching sweat-drenched and distraught through
Fur Elise like a drunken typing pool. Full house beats one-of-a-kind.

Oh, well done, you were divine, a taste of heaven to the ear!
These flowers are a token of my love and great esteem.
You are so talented and brave.  Let’s go get the largest ice cream
We can find, and forget this charade until we have to do it all again next year.

Blink of an eye

Hi, love. Sorry I missed your call – I know
It can get lonely at the hospital.
It will be great to have you home tonight.

I was out at Penney’s with our newborn
Buying him a birthday suit, extra long.
He looks so cute, you could just eat him up.

He’s been eating constantly, back to his
Birth weight, and then some. He does like ice cream,
Especially the stuff your mother brought us.

Nap times are good, he’s getting lots of sleep
But his days and nights are all turned around.
It must be from all that time in the womb.

Oh, and the driving instructor called us
She said there’s a spot for him next Friday,
Now that he’s learned to walk, and read, and shave.

When I asked the woman at United
If they would take care of him on the plane
There was an awkward pause, before she said

Sir, your son is sixteen – he’s an adult.
She’s right – he is the best of both of us.
And it happened in the blink of an eye.

The naked truth

(Hendrickje bathing, by Rembrandt, 1654)


I swear by all that’s holy
If you keep stepping on there
It will steal your soul.

When you lose, you feel uneasy
When you don’t, you feel worse
And all the time you look the same to me

Stepping radiant from the shower,
Torrents streaming from your hair
Like a goddess at her bath.

Hendrickje never had a bathroom scale
Neither did Venus on her half-shell
And you surpass them both.

Attraction

Some days we
Are magnets
Dancing spikes
Of iron
We quiver
Unable
To embrace
Until one
Suddenly
Turns their back.

Salt

(For my father)

It’s time to mow the grass for the first time
This spring – the tousled dandelion heads
Bobbing above great ragged waves of green.
Next to the street, the lawn is struggling,
Burned under mounds of salt thrown down by plows
Last winter. Nothing can live with that much salt.

My father told me once how they used salt
In the ancient world, as fertilizer,
Spreading it on the fields to make crops grow.
Too much salt in one place damaged the soil,
Scorched beyond use. But when spread thin it was
Golden! Life and death in each farmer’s hands.

The good book says: you are salt for the earth.
And I think of how we all get piled up
In great toxic mounds of long-lost goodness.
We poison our own back yards, when we could
Be scooped up and scattered to the fresh winds
Helping wheat and weeds grow up together.


Written originally for a prompt at the wonderful Poetic Bloomings site.

Postsy Toodey

I love nicknames – everyone should have one.
It shows you are loved and special – J.Lo
A-Rod, The Gipper, Deep Throat, Mack the Knife.

Maybe certain movies would be improved
If they had fancy nicknames to go by.
The Sweet Smell of Success would be Smelly

The Lord of the Rings just known as Ringer
While the Return of the Body Snatchers
Would be Rot B.S. – appropriate, eh?

Anna Karenina would be Russky
E.T. would be Mr. T, and King Kong
Could choose: K-Kong, Special K or Big Guy.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2-D
Would be Potsy Toodey, and in 3-D
It would graduate to Potsy Threedee.

As far as I can tell there is nothing
You could do to improve Casablanca.
Great art should be left alone: Play it Sam.

Old Gasoline

Old gasoline smells nasty when it spills
All bungee cords aren’t created equal
It is possible to have too much string
Chipboard doesn’t make a very strong ramp
Teenagers love to prove how strong they are
Especially to other teenagers
Truck rental places lie – get over it.
Leftover rolls and coffee taste like dust
When you’re standing in an empty garage
Watching one of your best friends drive away.