[David Callin]

SECOND REVISION

When I hear the horns come in
on "The Very Thought of You"
(this is Al Bowlly’s version),
that joyous fortissimo

is like Bechet's enormous yes,
a moment of congruence
in an out of kilter universe
suddenly making sense

and I think of the footsore Pilgrim,
having sloughed off greed and wrath and pride,
with the trumpets sounding for him
on the other side

and this is one of music’s
neater tricks.

REVISION

When I hear the horns come in
on "The Very Thought of You"
(this is Al Bowlly’s version)
that joyous fortissimo

is like an unconditional yes,
the unreserved acceptance
of a hubble bubble universe
suddenly making sense

and I think of the footsore Pilgrim,
having sloughed off greed and wrath and pride,
with the trumpets sounding for him
on the other side

and this is one of music’s
neater tricks.

ORIGINAL

When I hear the horns come in
on The Very Thought of You
(this is Al Bowlly’s version)
that joyous fortissimo

is like an enormous welcoming yes,
the unreserved acceptance
of a briefly rational universe
suddenly making sense

and I think of the footsore pilgrim,
having sloughed off greed and wrath and pride,
with the trumpets sounding for him
on the other side

and this is one of music’s
neater tricks.

[Mark McDonnell]

This is really nice, David. I only realised it was a sonnet on second reading. The bathos of the ending made me laugh in how it undercuts the form's traditional closing couplet flourish. But it's wonderfully true as well.

I only wonder, and I hate to say it, if the idea and one of the key lines is too close to Larkin's poem "For Sidney Bechet", also a tribute to the joys of old-timey jazz and containing the (I think fairly famous) line:

"On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes."

[David Callin]

Dammit all, Mark - you're right about that line, of course. I should have recognised it - part-disguised - when it came to me.

I'll put that right.

Cheers

David

[Glenn Wright]

Beautiful celebration of the power of music to change not only our mood, but our whole view of the world! Nice work!
Glenn

[Susan McLean]

Fine poem. You could avoid some potential confusion by putting the song's title in quotation marks. I didn't notice the rhymes until they were pointed out. When the meter varies so much from line to line, it distracts readers from noticing the rhymes, which tends to be considered a good thing these days. I don't mind noticeable rhymes, but I seem to be in the minority currently. I thought I caught an allusion to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in S3, but when you don't capitalize Pilgrim, it could be any pilgrim.

Susan

[Carl Copeland]

Yeah, this is cool, David. Though no fan of “wrenched rhymes,” I think they work in such a formally loose poem. Now I need to check out the song …

[Joe Crocker]

Hi David

On my first read I was enjoying it up to the final phrase, which I thought undercut that glorious crash of insight that music can bring. New connections are made and and the trumpets of heaven are sounding for us sinners. I know you enjoy understatement but, I dunno, it felt wrong to simply call it a "neat trick". However, Mark's appreciation of it as deliberate and carefully considered "bathos" has me reconsidering.

I did wonder in S2 whether "briefly" (L3) and "suddenly" (L4) were overlapping too much? (I might replace "briefly rational" with another description of the universe. I want to say "stiffly rational" for some reason). But either way, how music conveys emotion in ways that words cannot is always worth singing about.

[David Callin]

I am still working on the fix pointed out by Mark, but pending that ...

Thanks Glenn. Glad you liked it.

And the same goes for you, Susan. I could have used the quotation marks, but they sometimes seem to take the reader out of the poem, I think, as a visual distraction. But maybe I should use them.

The metre does ebb and flow, doesn't it? I quite like that, but it could be getting to be a bad habit with me.

But you're right, it would be better to capitalise Pilgrim. (The allusion you refer to is actually pretty much a straightforward lift from PP ... "So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.")

Thanks Carl. Yes, check it out ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bw5h-WPYBQ#ddg-play (Private passions are often not transferable. You may wonder what I'm making such a fuss about. These are personal things.)

I hear what you say about the last two lines, Joe. I wondered about them myself. I think they might be a wry recognition of what music can do to you, even though you know (or one knows) that perhaps it shouldn't. And I think I like them.

S2 definitely needs some fiddling with. (Another musical reference there, I see).

Cheers all - I know I have more to do on this, in S2 at least.

David

[Carl Copeland]

I had a thought similar to Joe’s about S2L3 and S2L4, but I was thinking of “rational” and “making sense” as overlapping. I couldn’t decide whether it bothered me or not. As for the closing couplet, it’s undercutting the heavenly trumpets more than the 1930s pop song, and I think I like the deflating pinprick. I’d put the song title in quotes, btw.

[David Callin]

Okay, I've tried to improve a few of the weaker points.