Rhapsody

“Dance with Parkinson’s” (with whom I share a weekly zoom session run by English National Ballet) this term prepared a choreography around Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. With other hubs around the country, we were filmed in preparation for publicity around this year’s World Parkinson’s Day. This poem was written after filming, reflecting on that choreography and our preparations for the performance…

It’s Blue, red cheeky shock, caught out,

and raised jazz hands in Parky shake,

fantastic tripping in the light

as zooming changed scenes played about.

Here’s marching New York, taxi splashed,

both hail and hearty subway track,

the hanging, yawning, coffee sniff,

again the cab, derisive, dashed.

But wither going, wobble high,

then drawing rainbows over sky.

From bird to portrait, arms stretch, spout

of leaping fish, wrong name dished out,

arm run to hornpipe, tick tock clock,

the upper body, boxing bout.

Conducted by the music played,

poor sense of power when notes delayed,

with carpet bagging focal shots

on mangled legs, those feet displayed

and tremors floored in filming plot,

a dance routine somewhat forgot.

Glissando rise through frame landmarks,

with overview as curtains drawn,

eggs over easy, take out drink,

ways broad, Bronx, Harlem, Central Park.

We shuffled here and wiggled, bopped,

our elbows screwed up to the screen,

and left stepped, forward, back, again,

then circled, shaped until we dropped.

This ballet, dance, body unbends

as giggle with far distant friends.

Posted on The Wall, Poets with Parkinson's, World Parkinson's Day, 11th April 2024