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La Douce Dame Jolie
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LA DOUCE DAME JOLIE is one of the cuts on Terry McDade's "Harpe Danse" album. The musicians include Terry, Solon and Jeremiah McDade, Shannon Johnson, John Towill, Dwayne Hrynkiw, David Merriman and cameo performances by others. I was inspired by this melody to write this ode to Shannon and her family of musicians and performed it with them at the Timm's Centre Celtic Show, the 1998 Hovel Reunion and at some Museum and Library concerts since then. Each December the McDades invite me to do this at the John Walter Museum Midwinter Solstice series; it also appears on my recent CD, "Silver Apples of the Moon".
The melody's rhythms loose long golden hair
down the slope of her rollicking breast.
Free! Beneath breast bone her restless heart sings and her wings unfold gently from rest.
Her lips form words, yet no word is uttered:
a silent invitation to fly.
Dream the body awake. Now,listen. Just listen.
This song is no lullaby.
The spirited wings of La Douce Dame Jolie
beat, testing their sinewy strength.
Pectorals flex; her wingspan uplifts;
La Douce Dame Jolie soars at length.
Her pinions beat harmonic melodious airs;
her gallant musicians fly higher.
Follow skyward the goatskin and fiddle-flute fleet,
the didjeridu and the lyre.
One draws horse hair's resinous buoyancy
across the tuned tension
of Cremona's jewel-box unfretted.
Another taps a gyre of spiral,
rippling taut goatskin
with finger-dance unerring.
A third growls bassy lipflutter
and belly-burps low the vowels
amplified up and out of eucalyptus hollow.
The flautist's breathwind
winds the chromatic column
through grace-noted shriek-sobs
and the bassist imbeds rhythmic
the low-noted clef.
All the while the hoary harper
tickles the gut of the sacrificed cat,
dry-flayed and stretched
from sounding gourd to lyre-strut.
We'll all dance the dance of the sacrificed cat;
clog-dance to skintap and stringstrum, you hear?
The violin dance of La Douce Dame Jolie;
the bodranbeat spoonjig and harpe danse, my dear!
Float with her, fly with La Douce Dame Jolie;
Sing! Fly! Live! Die with La Douce Dame Jolie!
La Douce Dame Jolie! Oh, La Douce Dame Jolie!
Dance we the dance of La Douce Dame Jolie!
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Web Design by Douglas Elves. Water reflection photograph by Linda Jennings.
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Dean Morrison McKenzie  McKenzie's a kid from the village; it shows in his themes. His poetry, fiction, music, films and essays are laden with imagery gathered from the world that surrounds small prairie towns. So far he has co-authored two or three chapbooks, read his stuff on public radio and has had his voice used to record commercials and training films. McKenzie's first CD, "Prairie Hejira" was published in 2001 and on November 23rd, 2003, at The Yardbird Suite, he and the band released "The Silver Apples of the Moon". He also wrote the script for "Skipping Stone" -- the AMPIA-award winning film produced by Frame 30, and recently Michael Hamm screened McKenzie's "Night Benz", another short film based on the prose/poem included in this chap book. It was awarded a Silver Medal at the Houston International Festival of Independent Films in the category Jazz/New Age/Spoken Word. When asked about life as a retired English teacher, he refers to it as a bus man's Holiday. "I've been editing the work of others all my life; now I'm smoothing out my own roughnesses." Watch for his next chapbook, "The McKenzie Chronicles" and "The Jazz Poet" CD is just around the corner along with a loosely connected series of short stories about the "Urbaniginals". McKenzie is also working with MaxMedia to produce some poetry/art/music videos with the collaboration of Alberta post-modern impressionist Wayne Schneider. Wayne's paintings create moody graphics that reflect some of the darker aspects of McKenzie's themes; the corollary: McKenzie's poems reflect Wayne's angst. Andrew Glover's synthesized keyboards will accompany "His Recurring Night Terrors" in the performance poems. The submissions in this electronic chapbook include pieces that you may have read, heard or seen elsewhere, but they were nearly all published on this web site or in the Stroll Archives before they made their way into recordings, public performances, hard copies or film scripts.
POEMS
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