The Maynard
Spring 2015

(Ouverture)

Why no dotted rhythms whenever we arrive
late eludes, why no fanfare to match a monarch
grappling with gout, a light march
to say the least—
no time to talk either, no unique chamber
full of new chamber music, nods and knowing
looks over such complexifications—ah, little
snub nose you’ll be the death of me—or one of those
classical hiccoughs that nearly makes you drop
that utensil you are not holding properly—
immoral as ever, feigning an immortal air
one may observe in a pretty
ostentatious bust, somehow fishing
Versailles out of faint salmon run
what is the harm then in playing
impresario or minor ‘Noble
Savage’, like any petit-bourgeois
setting up shop as Louis XIV
with opera flooding ‘Fauxhemia’
to the point of financial ruin, or
d’Artagnan leading away our own
Ministers, not picturesque enough
for the pictures, tending to believe
Lulli would handle it “gangnam style”
yet still unwilling to shell out royalties
for singing along when everything is free anyway, Ovid’s
frogs in the fountain sole reminders you might have towed
the line—
                          Bach
                                   being
         us, being                     too français             We, being
                         too Deutsch                    too un-Nation-y
why no dotted                                                  why no besotted
                           rhythms            hymns
     why no                                                 too
                    luxuriantly plotted                    uxorious
                                                      hyacinth                   in tone
the mottle of Molière’s lungs
                                                   in Le Malade Imaginaire
           a light march                                                        (alla
                                to match                                                marcia)
                                                 flapping monarch
                        molto troppo
too something                       too many
                                          notes