I COULD RUIN YOUR DAY RIGHT NOW, FOLKS,

 

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