Hi Bill thanks for this re hard times for a socialist-I have a cassette
called 'may day song book' celebrating may days 100 years -I believe from
Melbourne -perhaps is Verna there ?
Make you a copy
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 05 December 2012 05:34
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ' Aunt Verna and the Choir'
Aunt Verna and the Choir
Dear Verna, more than an aunt to me.
Having only had a girl, how you
mothered me, your only nephew.
Life-long defiantly left-wing,
defending Stalin till his death
from his critics' 'sheer propaganda';
distrusting everything American,
'big business', bankers, Ford cars.
Your kitchen bounty was
that of a generous socialist.
Your garden, and uncle Basil's,
touchingly private enterprise.
Then there was your 'ladies choir'!
How many annual recitals
did my mother and I attend?
(Father made some brazen excuse.
Too musical to tolerate it,
he'd be playing poker with mates.)
Albyn! the name I just recall
but not the woman whose choir it was.
You were one of her faithful.
In some small hall, unheated
on a wintry night, clutching
scarves to our throats, watching
you and your friends lift up their chins
and sing, their strained expressions,
painful exposing of stretched necks,
none longer than yours, Verna.
I sense constriction in my throat
just feeling the memory.
Will no one tell me what you sang?
Nothing too melodious,
nothing too folksy,
nothing like a Spiritual,
nothing foreign,
unless in bland translation.
Rose-bud, rose-bud, rose-bud red?
by the road-side
some-some-thing.
As Friend, other nights, of the Soviet
Union, at movies like Potemkin,
your faithful voice should have blended
with the People's choir: Revolution!
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