[Catherine Chandler]

Surabaya

Du hast kein Herz, Johnny,
und ich liebe dich so. (“Surabaya-Johnny” – Lane / Brecht / Weill)

She thinks there’s no more deadly word than "And".
(As in "and Juliet"…) The moon and sea
are up to their old tricks. It should be banned,
she says, this syllable of tragedy.

He asks her (Dido and) why women fall
for liars. In reply she sings You’ve got
no heart, Johnny, and I do love you so.
Desire’s catastrophe lies in such small
conjunctions. (Bonnie and) A speckled knot
of snakes is winding through her hair, although

she seems oblivious. (and Heloise)
He plucks a reed and coos a lazy air.
She walks away between the sleeping trees
to tell the moon it has no business there.


Comment by Mr. Gwynn:

This is very inventive, and works very well once the reader has got familiar with the song and situation. The only real problems I have are with capitalization and punctuation. Why is “And” capitalized in the first line, and why is it in quotes instead of italics? Why is there a period at the end of l. 1? I find a similar inconsistency with the quotation in ll. 3-4 and the next one in ll. 6-7 and with the ellipses in l. 2 that aren’t used elsewhere. Hearing this read would be an absolute pleasure, but on the page it strikes me as too “busy.” “A speckled knot / of snakes is winding through her hair” is very nice, full of beauty, stealth, and poison. “sleeping trees” might be improved upon. “swooning trees”?

Perhaps not.