PVC Dancing

[Stephen Whiteside]

This is from a very strange - and wonderful - dream I had last night.


PVC Dancing

© Stephen Whiteside 04.05.2013

I found a length of PVC – a simple, bendy pipe.
I placed it to my mouth and blew. It made a music ripe.
I sauntered down the street a way, huff-puffing as I went.
No doubt to some I looked a rather odd and wayward gent –

But not to all! Some young folk – mostly girls – picked up my gist.
They tentatively began to sway and clap, to jive and twist.
I blew my pipe more strongly, with a strong and sassy beat,
And watched my crew reciprocate, with slowly rising heat.

In twos and threes they formed a troupe, and danced along the road.
I concentrated deeply in a syncopated mode.
I blew. I thought. I blew some more. My PVC was smoking.
These dancers’ fires would burn as long as I could keep on stoking!

A crowd soon came to watch the show, which brought me to my best.
I’d never have another chance I like this. I played with zest.
I played with vim. I played for now. I thought not of the morrow,
And mustered all the spark that I could beg or steal or borrow,

And still the dance intensity rose higher, ever higher.
Where once had been a cold, grey street was burning, churning fire.
At last I knew the time had come. I let them dance away.
I turned my music slowly down to let the street turn grey…

But it did not. No, not at first, for thunderous applause
Assailed my ears and shook my chest. I revelled in the roars
Of shoppers, clerks, commuters as they thanked me for my show,
Of breaking up the pattern of the dull, relentless flow

Of time that meant so little in this mean suburban street,
For pouring off some cold and switching it with Cajun heat.
I thanked the world for girls with souls, for lengths of PVC,
And most of all I guess I thanked the good old world…for me.

[Irene]

Ah Stephen - would love to see you dancing up a storm in the middle of the street!!
I watched a video last year of a guy who danced when the urge overtook him, and he brightened up the day for many - and had them dancing with him!
Catchya
Irene

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thanks, Irene. Yeah, that's the idea, but I was just providing the music...

[Maureen K Clifford]

The world would be a much nicer place Stephen if we allowed such spontaneity to surface some times. I enjoyed the read - must have missed it when you put it up.

[alongtimegone]

Sounds like a good deal to me. Nice work... the poem and the girls.
Wazza

[Stephen Whiteside]

What a delight to see old poems being discovered! Thanks Maureen, Wazza.

[Neville Briggs]

I came across a short piece on the TV where a bloke made a hole down the middle of a carrot, drilled holes for fingering, then after jamming a clarinet mouthpiece onto it, played quite a passable resonant tune.( sort of a vegetarian ocarina ) So Stephen if you ever dream about playing on various vegetables from the market, you heard it here.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thanks, Marty.

A carronet, eh, Neville?

[Neville Briggs]

I guess so PVC pipe makes a good didgeridoo. You can even slide one inside the other and have a sort of trombone didgeridoo, I've seen it done by one of the indigenes.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Pulmonary Velocity Controller?