MaineCourse: Romance in the Seventies

August 28, 2005

Romance in the Seventies

Borrowed from a recent New Yorker

For An Old Girlfriend, Long Dead

Lying on that blanket, nights on the seventh green--
in the dry air the faint scent of gasoline,

nothing above us but the ragged moon,
nothing between but a whispered soon ...

Well, such was romance in the seventies.
Watergate and Cambodia, the public lies,

made our love seem, somehow, more true.
Of the few things I wanted then , I needed you.

I remember our last arguments, my angry calls,
then the long silence, those northern falls

we drifted toward our newly manufactured lives.
Does anything else of us survive?

That day in Paris, perhaps, when you swore
our crummy hotel was all you were looking for--

each cobbled Paris street, each dry baguette,
even the worthless sous nothing you'd forget.

Outside, a block away, the endless Seine
flowed roughly, then brightly, then...

Then nothing, Nothing later went quite that far.
I remember that spring. Those breasts. That car.

William Logan

One of the more awkward, stumbling deliveries, but a heartfelt musing. Rings true in much of the imagery, and perhaps the uneven clumsiness is deliberately evocative. Why'd it call to you, Lamont?

Posted by adam.

One of the more awkward, uneven pieces I can remember from such a discerning source as Michael. And, indulgently immature, it (mostly kinda sorta) rhymes, even ...

Much of it rings oh so true, though, for all that, and I wonder if the forced quality is feigned, to convey something of the dischord of memory.

One wonders what Mike's impulse was here ...

Posted by adam.

Sorry 'bout the redundancy -- my first comment showed as a blank after posting, even after several hours and reloads. So I tried to remember what I'd said and reposted, and when I did, the first reappeared ...

Posted by adam.

Posted by vioxx attorney.

Posted by Michael at August 28, 2005 08:08 AM

Comments

One of the more awkward, stumbling deliveries, but a heartfelt musing. Rings true in much of the imagery, and perhaps the uneven clumsiness is deliberately evocative. Why'd it call to you, Lamont?

Posted by: adamat September 4, 2005 06:53 PM

One of the more awkward, uneven pieces I can remember from such a discerning source as Michael. And, indulgently immature, it (mostly kinda sorta) rhymes, even ...

Much of it rings oh so true, though, for all that, and I wonder if the forced quality is feigned, to convey something of the dischord of memory.

One wonders what Mike's impulse was here ...

Posted by: adamat September 4, 2005 09:46 PM

Posted by: adamat September 4, 2005 09:49 PM

Posted by: vioxx attorneyat September 7, 2005 07:00 PM