Monday, April 17, 2017

PAD Day 17 Bonus:Something New (Out of Guilt?) and Something Old (Out of Joy)

Okay, so I may have felt a little "guilty" writing only a few haiku today, which could only marginally be called "nocturnes" or "dance poems".  So here's another - maybe I also wrote it out of guilt for not taking an evening walk. It's only indirectly about dancing, but I hope you like it.


[poem deleted]

And here is another "bonus" poem I wrote several years ago for the occasion of my son's upcoming wedding. It fits both prompts ("dance" and "nocturne") perfectly.

Hoofing

Of the fifty-eight things I need to do before I die,
number six is to dance at your wedding.
Yes, me - the guy who once asked for the Virginia Reel
at my junior high dance, because I learned it in gym class
and it was the only dance I knew.  I'll stumble and sway
with your mother and your bride through a  slow dance,
but later I'll need at least three beers to lubricate
my creaky joints and my reserve, and a full dervish of guests
on the dance floor, a Brownian movement of bodies,
where I'll slip between Uncle Jack, who lumbers like a grizzly bear,
and Aunt Lois and her date, who have inexplicably slid into a tango,
while the flower girl jumps randomly up and down,
parachuting her petticoats.  I'll be a hoofer for you -
that is, I will dance like an animal without toes.
I won't do that damned Chicken Dance,
but I will bounce and celebrate to Kool and the Gang
or any of those obligatory songs, as this ecstatic mob
thrums along with abandon in a rented hall,
under a clear, rosy evening sky, where somewhere,
your grandmother does the tarantella.

(Previously published in Mad Poets Review)

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