Listen to the rock’n’roll of the fifties
alive, raw, unfiltered, throbbing
away in your ears, your veins, your pulse
racing along with your feet…
From Elvis to Little Richard
Jerry Lee Lewis to Richie Valens
You’ll squirm, you’ll wiggle, your heart’ll
giggle ~ it’ll keep you off-balance
Don McClean sang of the day
the music died
I say 50’s rock is here forever
to stay ~ never ever to go away
Mr McClean built a large rooster machine.
Some comments he heard were pretty darned mean.
His wife was tired of hearing “that weirdo McClean”
He did not care, he could readily be seen
Cruising the avenue alongside a bike-riding teen
Showing them up with his speedy rooster machine.
Elton John, Billy Joel
Simon and Garfunkel
Dan Fogelburg, Jim Croce
Streisand, the Hollies
John Denver, Phil Collins
Don McClean
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
These artists created a
brand of music that - no way
has ever been eclipsed
Its mix in me will always stay
Hellganya was the busiest young witch I have ever seen.
She knew what she wanted and went after it with guff.
I will borrow bark from the McDoogles and the McClean.
I watched her travel from house to house borrowing stuff.
If it is borrowing, will you be bringing it back? I asked her.
She laughed at my naivety and thumped me on the head.
Like I would return this snake and that mangy cur.
I was entranced by her confidence, which was well fed.
Come on Cat she yelled to her sidekick, we’ve got a potion to brew.
Of course, I knew that it was stealing – borrowing it was not,
But I went along for I have wanted the recipe for her magic stew.
So with cat dog and snake we rode away to her magic pot spot.
It may be poignant,
at its best sublime
But not remembered,
—if it doesn’t rhyme
(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)
To ‘Don McClean’
Ducky, thanks for being here
Landmark man,
Thanks for the connection to my past
They need glass and steal
I need familiar things,
Things that mean and things that last
Old friendships, old rivalries in feats
The fragrant mornings
And birds self-satisfied singing
Before the naseberry trees are shaken
Something in those days
Our teeth in the cane stalk tearing
The fish on the spear point dangling
The girls across the fence skipping
The task and chores to idle
In the dreams we had without bridle
Something in those days
Says memory has a deeper purpose than mere recall
Says human bonds are fragile
And yet, and yet, has power over the living breath.
Ducky, friendship is repository, a sterling vault
An ocean in which memory keeps no fault.
I thought of you but did not know how to write
All the things collecting dust inside a heart
Since the walls of boyhood crumbled, and we apart
No longer come slushing through the mud tonight.
I have kept naseberry seasons with juice sweet
As an old man's passion, running down the cheeks
I have chewed cold joints of sugarcane, the feet
Of old empires grown proud where new mercy seeks
My peace. And this different from the day's quiet
End when on beds of sand we woke our dreams, met
The coming of our hope in the eyes of girls yet
Blooming like mangoes in may. Life is today a diet
Of choices, and we are doom unless we obey; and I
Should obey those inner voices for seasons dry
Longing now: and that was when orange rind made
The only tears that two young extroverts displayed.
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