The Venezuelan
who lives across
from Notre Dame
said he was
the last screen
after Trotsky
drew a warm
feeling from
Fourier for
the new bus routes
of Paris as we
sat discussing
anti-lions behind
the pinball machine
when Marion Williams
came in on sudden
wings and flooded
the dead café with
Amazing Grace
– Sidney Goldfarb (from Messages, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1971)
How’d I come to post this poem? First I listened to guitar music by Hans Werner Henze because a conversation with my cousin last weekend had sorely reminded me that I knew next to nothing about this composer. I found the pieces quite likeable, even though a bit bloodless. I decided I needed something more vigorous as an antidote and settled for gospel. First Dorothy Love Coates, but that wasn’t right. I remembered the intensity of Marion Williams‘ “It is well with my soul”, and that brought the association with Sidney Goldfarb’s poem.
Steer Forth! 