I COULD RUIN YOUR DAY RIGHT NOW, FOLKS,
and I just might. It’s the Fifth Week
of Lent and Easter remains two weeks off.
I’ve been with a group of Christians
reading poems, and as days lengthen,
and Jesus’s resurrection (as well as ours),
too far off to contemplate. People
have been struggling with metaphor
and as one who has walked with poems
I’ve been losing sleep myself. The fun part
(and the problem that follows) comes
right now, and I’m on my way
up the mountain with my niece
and nephew, and their dad, to ski,
I’m the uncle and it’s my job
to show them how to turn, part
of the Lenten experience, right?
My task to show them unweighting
and the downhill ski. They’re 5 and 7,
buckled in the back seat
and their Dad’s driving, talking
to his son about a video game:
You don’t want to wear a Yankee’s hat,
why not be an Oriole or a Red Leg?
To which his daughter begins singing,
Yankee Doodle went to town
riding on a pony, and her younger
brother catches up with her before
he sticks the feather in his cap.
And now I’m paying attention
as they sing again, after the feather’s
in the cap, and calls it macaroni.
I’m singing now myself under my breath,
my breathing hearing something coming
up from the deep. The feather.
The macaroni. That’s the answer.
The connection I’m looking for.
Christians will sing out in praise and remembrance.
I’m writing in my notebook as they sing,
singing as I write, I’m your Yankee
Doodle sweetheart, you’re my
Yankee Doodle boy. Sing it again,
the boy cries, mind the music
and your step and with the girls be handy.
Hear the sounds! I write.
The plosive Ds, the rich vowels.
The repetition and the over and over.
This is hot. The Long A and E
The Y and the elusive double o
singing doodle. All song and all sound.
Everything already loaded
into neuron pathway. Instant recall
and deliverance. Yankee Doodle
keep it up, keep it up. And again.
Yankee Doodle Dandy. Keep it up.
The delight and the repetition.
And the children singing in the backseat,
mountains before us. This ride
into the ecstatic. Forget London.
How fun being in this car singing
with my notebook, and just as fast
as I can write keep it up, just
that fast new lines from old lines.
I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
This is no longer child’s play.
Even the voices have changed.
George Washington is gone.
You’re losing your audience.
Keep it up the pony says,
like is he the drive or the driver?
This is evolution as play.
The revolutionary song is deconstructing.
Where did the feather in the cap go?
What happened to the macaroni?
Oh, Yankee Doodle, don’t stop now.
You must keep going. You see,
don’t you where this is going.
This is not a Christian moment.
Look again at Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Consider him for what he is, a Yankee.
Consider the dandy. As a Yankee,
he bears no last name. The doodle
becomes a verb, a doodling.
The doodling is fun, encouraging, too.
A new kind of delight. Dandy evolved,
another shift in our breathing. Some-
thing else is going on. Something, fun,
the body doodling and fine, and OK,
oh yes. Are we approaching
the summit? Skis have been forgotten.
Lent itself is gone. All this joy
as we live out the dark time of book burning.
Poetry itself is suspect.
What is this macaroni? And delight?
Delight in the song? The song remains.
The song still sings. It’s all I can hear,
how can I sleep without singing?
I play Billie Holiday. I channel Frank Sinatra.
I try and bend the notes as Billie taught Frank.
The early upbeat catalog of song.
It’s beautiful. Even But Beautiful
returns from Lady in Satin
with all that sadness. You know
where I’m coming from, don’t you, friends.
After the encore with Lester Young,
after bending melodies, when the stage empties,
it all comes back. Past the metaphor.
All that willful disobedience, beyond
the immaturity. Do or die. Inside the song.
Die and die and die until
you’ve been born again. The poet exposed
crossing boundaries creating chaos.
Jesus will cheer.
Yankee Doodle comes right back.
Maybe you’re making dinner.
I told you I could ruin your day.
You will never be the same.
Poetry will do that. It will ruin you for life.
Jim Bodeen
15-16 March 2024