Stanley tells us he wrote this poem as an elegy for Richard Howard. “The poem is not a home run, it’s a bunt, and I’m running as fast as I can to first base.”
B-Flat Elegy
Three cheers and chairs for Richard who died,
the cause was complications of dementia,
Finders keepers, losers weepers,
along the Seine, the Thames, the Sligo and Hudson.
God knows why it makes a poet friend recall
a kind, contrary Irish lady, Bridget Boland,
film writer, novelist, and gardener,
my close, close, close friend
I never slept with,
my devout Roman Catholic friend
lost her faith, couldn’t bear to hear music
for some reason hidden from her.
Incidentally I cheer
for a graduate student librarian,
Willa, whose mother is a horticulturist.
Her daughter can’t stand or abide flowers,
ugly roses, tulips, or violets.
I bet God loves Mr. Auden
who received a letter from his mother
after she died, he could not read,
it would have broken his heart forever.
Listening to Mozart and Bach, I think about
a lady who lost her father, husband, and children
at Dachau. She made out okay, but fell down,
got torn apart when she heard music.
I refuse to defend myself.
Bridget, my Irish lady born in London,
and the death camp lady
were somehow sisters. It’s strange.
Cheer if it pleases you, cheer
for the joy of not remembering your name.
Notre-Dame is on fire, in Madrid the Gran Via
snakes to the Palace Hotel.
Unkempt hair
almost rhymes with dementia.
In the Ukraine a loudspeaker tells the static news:
a boy, six years old, watched his mother raped
for two days by Russian troops.
The six year old son’s hair turned gray.
I hide feelings from myself
my inappropriate, demented preoccupations,
I mourn for a dozen eggs, Richard, and Bridget.
— Stanley Moss. Photo credit: Bill Hayward.
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Author: The Best American Poetry
