Poems

1812 Overture   The cannon are the hardest part, now that I have given up trying to whistle the bells. The best I can do, for a cannon blast, is puff out my cheeks and make a low gargling noise in my throat --      Boof!       Boof, boof! -- to punctuate "God Save the Tsar" just so.   Nor is it easier to whistle a "Marseillaise" interwoven with crescendoes grander than the French ever hoped for. Or find breath enough to pedal while slipping and sliding     down            those                 long                      glorious                             cascades                                 of notes. Or keep track of Tchaikovsky's elaborate transitions while dodging                            BUSES     cabs                                              pot-                                                          holes.   But the worst are    the melodies    piled    so high    atop each other that one person, whistling as he bikes on a glorious spring morning, cannot hope to do any of them justice, not with the most artful         trills,                 the cleverest INterCUTTING. I have only two lips; Tchaikovsky had a hundred splendid instruments, (none menaced by the southbound 42 in the outer lanes of Dupont Circle).   An exercise for "Poetry Bootcamp," March, 2000