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)