‘Theatre,’ ‘Opera,’ ‘Sculpture’ and Other Poems by Michael Coy

1. THEATRE

Strolling Players

Dancers, actors, acrobats!
Stripey trousers, floppy hats!
They weren’t born to swing a scythe,
pay a toll or weigh a tithe.
Not for them the horny hand,
tied to tilling leaden land.
They will never need to chew
on millet bread or turnip stew.
Red carnations, blue cravattes,
body supple, spirit blithe,
seguiriya, sarabande,
then tomorrow pastures new.

2. COMEDY

La Commedia dell’Arte

The art of comedy’s a sacred thing,
as fresh and precious in its gift of bliss
as when a worshipped one’s initial kiss
transports us first. Like Fragonard, we swing
to Lena Horne’s delightful rites of spring
on wings of wonder. No analysis
can pull apart a pleasure pure as this.
We humans laugh as nightingales might sing.
We’re told to think creators must be serious,
but humour’s both unruly and imperious,
and ridicule’s the boy-god’s sharpest dart.
We laugh and learn, though lifeless lead-weights weary us,
for dreariness is deadly, deleterious:
thank heaven for the comedy of art.

3. OPERA

L’Elisir d’Amore

To pass a perfect Spring, which never ends!
Forever to be handsome, healthy, young,
with psalms of sunlight, waiting to be sung!
To live a life of love, greet loyal friends,
and linger in the vineyard, lost among
sweet grapes of laughter, bursting on the tongue!
To never know a shadow on the heart –
for this, we have the alchemy of art.

The sun will always sparkle on the grange,
spry sparrows ever skitter to and fro.
Sopranos come and tenors tend to go,
but music is immortal, doesn’t change.
The drama will discard, evolve, accrue,
will always sound the same – and always new.

4. VERNACULAR MUSIC

Flamenco Song

I wasn’t ready for it when it hit.
Pathetic, self-absorbed, wallowing in grief,
plaiting the threads of self-disgust and wit,
I toyed with tragic sonnets for relief.

The night was hot. The cleft of Guadalin
crammed air, weighed down with jasmine, hard to breathe,
like musk in tall clay jars. I heard a skein
of song. It rose. It swirled. It dipped and writhed.

There, at my window, I was held, transfixed.
It was the ancient song of blood and soil.
That wailing voice was stinging, bitter – but was mixed
with darker tremelos which fizzed and boiled,

then sank again. It almost seemed the shock
of that shrill voice, embodiment of pain,
had stunned guitarist’s hand. His rhythmic knock
reminded me of coffins in the rain.

Voluptuous and frightening at one time,
mellifluous and jarring, fresh yet rotten,
the music was both guttural and sublime:
my puerile self-obsession was forgotten!

5. SCULPTURE

Micaelis Me Fecit

There lies a town in northern Spain
(thank God it’s little-known!)
where every chapel, church and fane
is hewn from honey stone.

Nice chunky arches, columns too,
with barley-sugar twist:
and gargoyles, griffins, gremlins who
quite cordially coexist.

To stroll here is to turn, with love,
some bestiary’s bold pages,
and marvel at the mindset of
those early Middle Ages.

Capricious carvings crowd one door,
coeval “carls” of Beckett:
and, scratched into one caricature,
Micaelis Me Fecit.

The mason sits in effigy,
a chisel in his hand.
He eyes us quite audaciously:
that look, we understand.

He doesn’t care for Time or Fame,
or Wealth, or Noble Birth:
that “Michael Made Me,” is his claim:
and Michael knows his worth.

Barrister, teacher and journalist, Michael Coy is an Irish poet who has settled permanently in the south of Spain. He readily admits to a serious rhyme-and-rhythm habit. Winner of various poetry prizes in Britain and Ireland, Michael has been published fairly regularly in the British poetry journal, ”Orbis.”