‘High Society’ and Other Poetry by Brian Yapko

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High Society

The Cornelius mansion on Park Avenue, New York
City, Sunday, August 22, 1886

A derby hat; a fresh, white boutonniere
On my lapel. You just can’t have a new
Beau Brummel jacket without something bright
To make the pretty debutantes draw near—
The girls who sigh that I’m a Wall Street knight,
The handsome Sultan of Fifth Avenue!

Yes, Mister Mirror-Man, you’re looking tops!
You’re… confident. In fact, you’re quite the corker!
Why, more than that I’d say that you’re “top-drawer.”
Your ruby class ring; shirts from high end shoppes;
A smile so dazzling strangers beg for more;
And swagger fitting one well-heeled New Yorker!

So, Mirror-Man, what’s triggered such elation?
This grin? This spark? You guessed! Her name is Mabel!
The clever girl that I intend to marry!
Of course, she doesn’t know my adoration,
This all-consuming secret that I carry.
I’ll speak my heart as soon as I am able.

But Father’s such a pill! This life he’s built
Hobnobbing with the Vanderbilts and Morgans
Has leashed me to a life so rarified,
So stifling it would make a cactus wilt.
He’ll balk at humble Mabel as my bride—
But I won’t marry one of his rich gorgons!

I entered Mabel’s shoppe. I sought a hat—
The kind that might appeal to snobbish mothers.
She took my hand, showed bonnets in glass cases,
And stole my heart. Love came as quick as that!
I wasn’t dealt a queen—I got four aces!
She’s mine. And, friend, I always get my druthers.

A milliner! The magic Mabel makes
With ribbons, feathers, flowers, silk and fur!
An artist—not one whit beneath my station!
So I don’t care if all Manhattan quakes
Or if I shock each silver-spooned relation.
I know the wife I want, by gum. It’s her!

I’ll leave at noon—that’s when she reads her book
In Central Park at the Bethesda Fountain—
Sweet angel! Like the statue at its peak!
And here’s the plan. I’ll “lose” my ring and look
For it near Mabel. We’ll play hide and seek—
Then watch love grow from molehill into mountain!

New York, watch out! There’s going to be a wedding!
And I can promise—it’s not just some stage
I’m going through to challenge my staid life.
When love bursts forth, there’s nothing worth regretting.
With me a gent and Mabel a grand wife,
Our marriage will gold-plate this gilded age!

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Edison Lights Up New York 

—September 4, 1882. Pearl Street, lower Manhattan

It’s plain that Ellie’s more enthralled than I.
She gasps with pleasure. Then she grabs my arm—
“The city streets are all lit up like magic!
Why Edison is soaring even higher
Than Adam did when he first mastered fire!”

I quote her Prospero: “’Tis new to thee.”
My tone is slightly wry. For near three weeks
I’ve followed Edison and his strange crew
As they strung wire and hung globes made of glass
Directly from our gas-light fixture brass.

No magic dragons here, though not mundane:
It’s voltage captured in an airless bottle
With carbon bent into a filament.
The black of night is quelled by this deterrent.
But it’s no spell. It’s just electric current.

And yet think of the possibilities!
The cobbled streets aglow, the sidewalks gleaming
All lit by rows of lamps, each like a star—
Collectively more brilliant than the moon.
A bane to crime; for commerce a great boon!

Electric light can turn night into day.
The glow is bright yet also smooth and steady.
It doesn’t make one hot. It does the job
In ways that coal gas simply cannot handle.
It’s clear as day that flame can’t hold a candle.

My wife had begged to see this demonstration!
But Ellie’s so naïve. She does not grasp
This “magic” soon shall cost me my employment.
They’ll buy out our gas easements for a song.
They won’t be needing lamplighters for long.

A pity, too, ‘cause I’m the best—I give
My wood-slide lighting stick a flick and get
The gas aflame in forty seconds flat.
Another lamp ignited. Then repeat.
But soon it seems I shall be obsolete.

Is Edison indeed a modern Moses?
He flips a thumbscrew, says “let there be light.”
What say the pastors on this new invention?
“Hosanna for the incandescent lamp!”
Perhaps. But I’m in the opposing camp.

I wish that I had Ellie’s open mind.
I fear this change when it should be embraced.
But we’ve had gas-lights barely fifty years.
It’s strange how quickly they are brushed aside—
Brought in, then quickly swept out with the tide.

Of course I am excited to see lights
Shine both inside and out the New York Times—
The largest building ever lit up thus
And now one of Manhattan’s greatest sights.
Its journalists can lie now days and nights.

Gas had its day. It limited our work.
No glass bulbs needed. But some real demerits.
The stage and costumes set aflame by limelight.
Just think of all the theaters burned down
And all the deaths from fires in this town.

But Edison provides safe incandescence!
A shine so bright I must avert my eyes
As if the Lord of Hosts has come to Earth!
I check my watch. It’s now exactly seven
And Ellie glows as if she’s just seen Heaven.

I fear how this invention may unweave
The rainbow even as it bolsters sight.
And yet how Edison lights up the night!
A coal-dark world turned bright with lightning tamed!
If she sees “magic,” Ellie can’t be blamed.

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Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.