Yes
 

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.

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."

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

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

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

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 …

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.

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

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.

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

I loved this right away, David. This has bite, like many of my favorites of yours. But a happier bite, haha. Speaking of Larkin, yeah, unfortunately Mark I think was right that the original was a little too close (with the “enormous” there). Which sucks because the way it was put seems to be so your voice. “unconditional” is flat in comparison, imo.

I’m not sure about hubble bubble, especially if you are referring to the actual technical term (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_bubble_(astronomy)? (I still don’t understand what the hell that is…) But probably this is just an expression that I’m unfamiliar with...? In the end, like others, I’m not sure how bothered I am with the original, though I too would probably be tinkering with other possibilities. These small issues aside, again, I think this is terrific, and love the close.

Thanks James. You've driven me back to the drawing board. The hubble bubble universe was a failed experiment, and I've embraced (and acknowledged) the Larkin phrase. How could I not?

Really pleased you like it. Hope I've moved it a little closer to its ideal form.

Cheers

David

"Congruence in an out of kilter universe" is perfect.

The reference to Bechet is now at two removes. I doubt I would pick it up at first reading and probably not even if I googled him. You could replace Bechet with Larkin. But maybe it doesn't matter. It may be enough just to signpost that a reference is being made.

David, clever without being obvious about it, and refreshing to have jazz and Larkin paid tribute with – what seems to me – perfect pitch. All that said, I miss some of the details in V. 2. The hubble-bubble universe has a wonderful sound, a great pun that hit me only later and an image of galaxies wheeling and expanding like great vamping and improv by a master.

Thanks for that, Rob. At first I thought that I had remembered "hubble bubble" from Macbeth but, alas, no. (What I was remembering was a Manfred Mann single from 1964, which is quite a different thing, and quite without the resonance I was after.)

Cheers

David

For my money, the first revision is superior to the second revision. The first revision's language is much more interesting to my ear.

A.B.

Wonderful poem. I prefer the second revision, overall, except that I didn't understand the Bechet reference until I read through the thread. I would probably go with "is an unconditional yes" (do you need the "like" in that line?) but would keep the rest of the most recent revision as you have it.

Thanks Joe! Sorry, I missed your comment when replying to Rob.

And thanks, Ashley and Hilary. Duly noted. I now can't make up my mind which the best version is.

Cheers all

David

Yes
 

Hi David,
I like this, especially the first two stanzas, with reservations. I don't know who Al Bowlly is, so that was distracting. Of course I could research him, but I wonder if you can expect your readers to do that.

I'm suspicious of the rhymes, because it's my understanding (could always be wrong) that any kind of sound effect must happen in the stressed syllable of a word; many of yours seem to be happening on unstressed syllables, and that just seems weird to me.

Hope this is helpful--
Barbara

David--
This is thrilling. I enjoyed every version and reading the comments of others deepened my appreciation. If I had a vote, I'd vote for "acceptance" over "congruence" as I feel that fits better with the Pilgrim (who is being accepted into his reward). But overall just a terrific poem in all the versions.

It is helpful, again, Barbara. Thanks for that. You've got me wondering about the rhyming. What have I been doing there?

I think Al Bowlly is much better known over here than he is in the US - thanks, in great part, to the wondrous Pennies from Heaven by Dennis Potter. See it if you can. (Although some of it has not dated well, perhaps.)

Hurrah, Paula! That is very kind of you. and I like your reasoning on acceptance v congruence. Something else to mull.

Cheers both

David