Ah, the three step poem, Max.
How many of us of that generation suffered so?
I could manage to throw my body around to rocknroll, though; I guess we all could…
Doug
> On Oct 28, 2015, at 9:19 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Coronation Year Skills
>
> Edmund Hillary and co. were back
> from ‘conquering Everest’ - all
> New Zealand glowed with pride,
>
> wanting to hear him - and we did.
> The whole school attended the event -
> other schools were there in force.
>
> He was mild, soft-spoken - one of us,
> also athletic and determined.
> He praised the Sherpas, as we
>
> would have done. It pleased him
> that the Brits had run the show,
> choosing him for his climbing skill,
>
> He’d knocked it off in Coronation
> Year! That topped it off;
> the same year that began my life
>
> in ballroom dancing, practicing
> the new ‘Queen Elizabeth Waltz’.
> Cousin Marie, my age, said:
>
> ‘Join! it’s cheap, it’s Friday night.
> I and my friends will ease you in.’
> John from my class was in
>
> already, the walk was short
> from his place to the back-garden
> dance-shed of our instructor.
>
> We went together. Oh, the pain!
> dressed in new ‘strides’, stiff shirts,
> hair Brylcreemed down. John
>
> it suited, his black shoes shone.
> Biking to his place I was in a sweat,
> worse now in the bright-lit room
>
> thronged with girls in skirts and blouses,
> and smart shining hair - their feet
> I knew I’d tread on, red-faced. Don’t
>
> look down, smile! listen and respond!
> And learn the foxtrot and the waltz!
> All much too hard. Marie helped,
>
> her friends had been alerted. Others
> made me freeze, falter and stumble.
> The gramophone was old, our teacher’s
>
> records scratched, except the new one:
> da-da da-da da-di-da -
> the Queen Elizabeth Waltz.
>
> All winter we practiced. Round
> and round, skirts swirled, dizzying.
> She’d have been proud, Her Majesty.
>
> Others may have got to some ball
> and done it to live music - I’d
> be on my bike skulking elsewhere.
>
> Once only there was a school dance.
> Thank you, dear old cousin, for kind
> attendance with your friends.
>
> Next year - was it? - waltzing was eclipsed -
> Hillary’s country! - swept out everywhere.
> Rock and roll - American - swung in there.
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Done in by creation itself.
I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
Robert Kroetsch.
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