J. Powell McDonald
Well, Mary!
Have you any scent
of this fragrance,
my joy?
Dare I say in few words how fast
they had opened,
the petals of this rose, my heart,
when I knew from this blossom
that e'en one you had plucked
to be pressed among the leaves
of thy book?
And oh! Dear Mary!
Now just look at this:
>From your poem:
THE WEARY STRUGGLE
. . . for like a sieve
my poetry cannot grasp the glorious smell
of strawberries
Oh no, no,
none ever can!
Or catch the drops that fall on my tongue
in a rain shower:
cannot hold the torrents from the sky
no, never!
which slip through my fingers.
I, sinner, never may grasp
The Promised Land.
O glorious idea!
And has the writer of such verses as these,
truly invited me to sit and stir a cup of
poetic tea with her here under this cyber
tree, on the lawn of this universe?
Ah, thank you dear, dear lady,
but no sugar for me,
I'll just have mine
without the cream
and somewhere between
black and burnt umber.
Oh, and please if you don't mind,
just a vague whisper, if you'll
lean my way,
and ease the suspense
such as to tell me,
just which little petal
was it anyway?
J. Powell McDonaldWritten in fond dedication
To the memory of
Dorothy Parker
Being An
Unabashedly rhymed
Utterly Sexist foray
Into the frolicsome joy
Of light verse.
If They Don't Play Prez
Prado at My Funeral
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by John Powell McDonald
If they don't play Prez Prado
at my funeral,
and they don't dance
'round my casket,
the Mambo,
strewing flowers
en route to my grave
from their baskets,
all the way,
if they don't squirt red wine,
from full bladders bursting,
drinking in communion,
a shout of their gladness,
toast for toast,
that I'm gone,
I'll haunt them to death,
with my white sheet on,
to their last living breath,
If they don't play that song
at my funeral.
(Being made of reflections,
on seeing La Dolce Vita again,
after this long,
from Fellini's figure of flying
grace at the first,
to the brunette nude
under mink at the last,
and through it all, that hot,
Latin song - such a gas
to hear it now,
just as back when
my heart was aflame
for a Sweet Sixteen,
Teenage Queen,
Patricia, by name,
who had a...
well a ...
well a ...
who dooby-do
dom dom
worthy of none
but the highest acclaim.)
And If sexy satyrs and nymphs
don't dance to the fullest
consumation of romance,
in the clover that grows rife
of my ferment o'er the place
of my everlasting life,
I'll burst through the sod,
with my lawnmower running and ride
'em all down till they get
the phonograph going,
to play a 45 side of "Patricia",
from the time of my funeral, on!
Da da da da (bump bump bump)
Da da da da - - (bump bump) unh!
Ooooooooooaah!
Cha Cha Cha.
<C>1997 J. Powell McDonald