In Praise of Rock’n’Roll 1
I recommend, Rock’n’Roll, to a friend
as a panacea for weeping –
converting both grief and pain
to something more worth keeping.
but there is more…
A lonely Greek,
at twilight revealing
love for a dead child.
danced a solo as raw
as a Mardi gras lady
I one time saw
whose lips and eyes,
and hips and thighs
were the height of female perfection.
Had it seen her, I swear,
Cromwell’s statue would wear,
A monumental erection –
but there is more…
When you dance Rock’n’Roll
you stir up your soul.
So it is not surprising
When you suddenly see
that the girl in your dance
is the maid from the sea.
A belle on a shell, arising –
It is you that is changing, my friend.
Something as old as fire and air,
snakelike uncoils inside you.
Do not fight. Let it grow.
warming the cock-les
and the other bits too.
the muscles Alive! Alive! Oh!
Now good things start to flow.
Grief declines, as do
melancholy and guilt
and all the other sour emotions
which curdle our days –
Finally, when you sit-one-out,
have a fag, take five, whatever,
you find a kind of stepping-aside
has taken place inside you.
You’re young again – and back
when the world was simpler,
bigger, better, brighter, greener
and, in many ways, more true.
You suddenly see that all the bad things
that you thought were your own
have all happened before
and to someone else
in another country
and in a far, far, far, worse way.
They are what is:
like gravity and piles.
And good things are still to come,
because the beat has never stopped
and never will until the sun
goes down on our last breath.
and who knows what music
we will dance to then?
So yes,
dance some Rock’n’Roll.
Let a new pair of arms enfold you,
Or, if you feel that would not be right,
then dance alone
like the Mardigras girl,
I mentioned before
or my poor sad Greek
in the evening.
But dance, man. Dance!
Try Rock’n’Roll
Eight days a week.
In Praise of Rock n’ Roll 2
My favourite gal,
when I dance Rock’n’Roll
is a lass called
Gloria Monday.
But she’ll only dance
when my Head’n’Heart
have been primed
by hard dancing on Sunday.
When I drink from her glass,
I drink the sun neat.
I measure my life
by the tap of her feet.
She leads me to dance,
out into the street.
Thence through the cloister and
down to the shore
where I’ll dance till the moon
begs for no more.
Till next time…
Leave a comment