Alan Gould: Two Poems

A Somerset Jig

(Gustav Holst, Yehudi Menuhin on violin)

 

Mmmenuhin, Menuhin

the bees are at their orchard din

and I will catch that pure élan

from your eliding violin,

to go down into Somerset

and relocate a scuttle butt

of my North Curry kin,

 

where John Gould with his first moustache,

can not yet write his name when asked,

but puts big feet to canny use

when fiddle tunes are fast and loose.

And Lizzie Clifford with long face

twirls circumspectly in that place

with Hannah, William, Anne and Ben,

washerwomen, husbandmen.

 

For Gustav Holst has tuned his ears,

to pick grave dance steps from the years

and turn them into lures of sound

that draw my dead from underground,

great grandpa and great grandma both,

sepia’d in their dark broadcloth,

my forebears on a parish roll

who did not doubt they owned a soul.

 

Menuhin, Menuhin,

sighting down your violin,

I’ll catch the uplift and the tweedle

that draws the frolic from the fiddle

where John Gould dances chin to chin

with Lizzie Clifford who will get

his awkward mind with alphabet,

that stern and steady-gazing dame

who turned his black marks to a name,

 

but now takes crotchets to be merry

beside the Levels of North Curry

that Menuhin, Menuhin

has conjured with his violin

where the bees are at their din.

 

 

 

Cat-minding

(To the tune of “Hugh the Graeme”)

 

Beyáz the cat has a-hunting gone

by rhubarb stalks and garden sheds,

and sentient stuff he’s chanced upon,

with courtesy he’s torn to shreds.

Mew and miaow, here’s lightning tactics

Mew and miaow, here’s feline tact.

 

Beyáz the cat is white as talc

and lives in paintings by Magritte.

He purrs with snores as bland as milk …

“Good pussies play with what they eat.”

Mew and miaow, here’s deep-space whiskers,

Mew and miaow, here’s stately frisk.

 

Dangle your fingers from a chair,

this Beyáz pussycat is sure

to leap from art’s to nature’s laws,

man-eating dreams between his claws.

Mew and miaow, here’s fleshy sketchwork,

Mew and miaow, here’s yawn-and-stretch.

 

He improvises snoring jazz

on my love’s wide and talc-white bed,

which is one reason that Beyáz

and I go at it, head-to-head.

Mew and miaow, here’s rival dalliance,

Mew and miaow, here’s eyed locale.

 

Now Beyáz trots across the lawn,

the laundry dries upon its hoist,

this Monday’s bright, my hand untorn,

Magritte’s poised squirrel brush is moist.

Mew and miaow, who’s clever pussy?

Mew and miaow, who’s studious?

 

Alan Gould