Alan Gould: Three Poems

 

Making Lines While Listening to Music

 

I was your long-haul poet, I composed

by matching how my hemispheres disclosed

their grainy footage with their clefs of sound

which then I’d fret till happy with their round.

 

Then came this music, lackadaisical,

and I learned how promiscuous was morale.

Paraap parp-parp, and so on with a tweedle,

here was the flirt where solo horn could sidle

 

from nearby strings to promptly thrill my joy

that beggared none, nor wow’d a hoi polloi.

Here was such instantaneous effect

upon my snagged, unhappy intellect,

 

seamed with heartbreak, yet finger-sorcery

to take my fret and make it rhapsody.

 

For music neither pleads nor asks

in its airy arabesques,

will leave no footprint and no husk

and all its ventures are high risk.

 

 

 

 

Romanza

(Vaughan Williams, Tuba concerto II)

 

One cello from its couch of sound

will trail my love’s slow wandering

through this our married air and sunlit place.

And it can nuance and attend

the colours of her wondering…

O yes, but still can’t find her lasting face

which painters, narrowing an eye,

spontaneously identify.

 

Now here comes Raku Pussycat

to seize his perch by my love’s ears

so both may amble tall from room to room

and inventory our this-and-that

like a pair of auctioneers,

and they’ll do mischief to the seem and groom

from melody that finds its space

by finding ground that has no place.

 

Four fingers flickering a stave

in just that blithe continuum

will strew the human ‘now’ with ‘furthermore’,

conjure this merry with this brave

in my love’s presence, yet is stumm

should someone take a box of chalks and draw

the fine exactness of her cheek,

when cat and she make one physique.

Alan Gould

 
An Elephant in the Tuba

(I know a dance the elephants believe

—Roethke)

 

From here the dapper elephant

embarks on trot,

whether the brass is eloquent

or whether it’s not.

 

He rises from these parps,

he’s self-possessed as levity,

and has such sober dance-steps

with which to tease Earth’s gravity.

 

Watch for his thoughtful sway,

le tour à pirouette,

the charm with which he honks hooray

to Bella or Minette.

 

In Asia and in Africa

where tubas are mysterious,

this threesome waltz for chief and vicar,

and prove they’re serious.

 Alan Gould

 

Addressing the Handicap

for Ms Sushila Likmabam, India’s judo finalist at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games

 

My Christian name’s Sushila, my surname’s Martyrdom,

I took up sport with just one thought, a surname’s overcome

by hurling hopefuls several floors, depending on my mood-Oh.

So here I am, the Indian lamb, and out for Gold in Judo.

 

My surname is a standing joke around the stadium,

and sniggers ride the coverage across all Christendom.

But I’m a girl can whirl and hurl and never leave a sore bit

For all I’ve launched contestants from arena into orbit.

 

Sushila Quick, Sushila Slick, Sushila leaves you stumm.

I’ll toss you all round Glasgow and right back to where you’re from.

The sun shines in the sky and from another place I’m told.

But I will lick all hopefuls who go down there seeking gold.

 

Alan Gould