Longing for Dance, 11-15

 (third set of five 10-line poems, of a sequence of 20 on the theme of dance)

11.

Then there was the time –

how old was I? 19? 20? –

when I worked part-time,

evenings and weekends,

as a cinema usherette

for the filmed Swan Lake

with Nureyev and Fonteyn

(that ‘magical partnership’ the press 

said, truthfully). Magic and beauty 

repeated, for me, every night.

12.

Dancing

around the subject of dancing,

I find the tempo and 

gesticulations vary

according to the main

thrust of the desired

direction, the ultimate end.

This of course depends 

on mood, purpose, stamina –

and most of all the random!

 

13.

The journey from birth to grave,

is that a dance, do you think?

Or is it a slow, plodding march,

or maybe a crawl?

I like to think it’s a dance,

even when the limbs deteriorate.

It could be a dance with a gentle, 

lengthy rhythm, or perhaps 

only very tiny steps. So long as 

one still keeps going, it’s a progress.

14. 

I can’t be holding light

between my clumsy hands!

They are an old woman’s hands

(obviously, I being an old woman).

Light wants to dance, and does dance

out of my hands and across the gaps

between people; between me and 

other people. Watch it flicker and leap!

The dance of light then dips low: a ballerina 

gracefully saluting her enthralled audience.

15.

I am hungry. I am ardent.

I fling my arms. I am fierce. 

I dance by stamping on the ground.

I dance by lifting high my knees 

and my busy, flashing heels.

Oh, this is a ferocious dance!

We have built it together, we

who refuse to go quietly into a

respectable ageing. Let us make 

fools of ourselves, let us win!

See also Poems 1-5, and Poems 6-10.

Longing for Dance, 6-10

 (the second five of a sequence of 20 10-line poems on the theme of dance)

6. 

‘Me and Bobby McGee,’ sang Janis

and I slid around the living-room floor

behind my broom, dancing like

no-one was watching (no-one was)

and chiming in with, ‘Freedom’s just

another word for nothing left to lose’ –

my moves gloriously free, because

no-one could see them, not even me –

and shouting out the words tuneless …

briefly escaping my young mother-wife-hood.

7.

Two of my Capricorn friends

(I have a lot of them; it must be

a thing, that Capricorns work

as friends with Scorpio: they’re

among my best friends … but we 

don’t have everything in common)

were professional belly-dancers

and teachers; but they could never 

teach me, though they tried – I don’t 

have the flexible midriff, the nimble feet.

8. 

‘Work,’ said the hymn, 

‘for the night is coming.’

I always heard it as, ‘Dance –

for the night is coming.’ 

When you come to the end

of your life, be that early

or late, maybe there’ll be

Heaven, maybe Hell, or simply 

nothing. No matter. I want to 

have danced while I was here.

9.

The dancing 

of fingers over keyboard

of words in my mind,

the music

of sounds and rhythms,

the play of ideas –

 

poetry compensates

for all my lack 

of dance,

of song.

10.

Gene Kelly in the rain;

Fred Astaire up walls

and across the ceiling;

Ginger Rogers with 

that smile, that hair;

Cyd Charisse with her

long, perfect legs;

Debbie Reynolds

and Mitzi Gaynor,

perky sweet …

(Number 9 is a textu.)

See also Poems 1-5,

Longing for Dance,1-5

(the first five of a sequence of 20 10-line poems on this theme)

1.

I wanted to be Anna Pavlova. I read her life, 

written for girls like me. My mother took me 

to ballet class with all the other little girls 

who dreamed. Hopeful rows of us. I was 

the one who couldn’t even move her feet 

into ‘first position.’ I wasn’t lithe, or 

coordinated. It didn’t make sense to me. 

My body wanted to go its own way. Perhaps 

it was just as well. In the book, I missed 

or ignored the bit about her bleeding toes. 

2.

My first husband, Don, was a champion

ballroom dancer: shelves of cups and medals!

When he danced with me, it looked as if I could.

I understood when he, just once or twice

every night, partnered someone good.

My second husband, Bill, was like me – hopeless 

on the floor. We jumped around with gusto, 

getting it wrong and so what? My third, Andrew, 

loved to dance. I believe he did it well. But, 

unable to share with equal finesse, we just didn’t.

3.

I want it to be flight, I want it to be

soaring, effortless, high into the 

air above me, weightless and free.

I want it to happen despite me, despite

my weight, my clumsiness, my body.

If that can’t be, then how about

in the arms of someone who loves me,

whirling to music, in a waltz, like 

the stars of ‘The Merry Widow’

and sweet notes of song soaring too?

4.

They say it’s the next best thing

to fornication. That it imitates that

or acts as precursor. But I say,

that’s wrong. I move well in bed,

need no help deciding what to do 

next, or where to put anything. It’s

only on the dance floor I get stuck

trying to figure out the moves,

the sequence – let alone the ease

and the flow. (What if I take the lead?)

5.

Birds dance, I’ve seen them.

On my lawn, new magpies

step lively, with a lilt.

Lorikeets attacking the trees

do so with happy jiggling. 

And that time when I lived where I 

watched eagles, I saw them dance 

on long currents of air: swooping,

swirling, gliding. And tiny finches 

dance on their toes, skip and hop.

Instructions, from Arcana Poetry Press on Instagram:

  

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United at FridayWritings #216: Just Dance. This is an exercise I came across, and happen to be engaged in at present – just when the P&SU prompt happens, serendipitously, to fit! We're only allowed 369 words for sharing with P&SU, hence I can't post the whole 20 pieces all at once – which is just as well, as I haven't written them all yet. I don't have enough leisure time to do 20 in one day! (Not even 'intensively.') Some of these have now had some tiny edits.