Overheard in Harvard Square, part 5

Okay, after no deliberation at all, just a quick re-read of the variations and emendations of the one stanza I've been working on, I'm going with the one that has nothing to do with me patting myself on the back for making clever puns in French. Today, anyway.

Here's the most recent version:

OVERHEARD IN HARVARD SQUARE

"I think I've finally figured out romance,"
The young brunette declared in Harvard Square.
"The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance.

"Passion is just a self-hypnotic trance --
It makes you chase a prize that isn't there.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

“You can make love to thousands of gallants
And not a single one of them will care.
The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance.

“The point is never passing up the chance
To lose at Risk instead of Solitaire.
I think I’ve finally figured out romance.

“Today’s sure thing is payment in advance
To help you meet tomorrow’s love affair.
The dancer doesn’t matter –- it’s the dance.

“Stop chasing after anything with pants
As if you're only Ginger with Astaire.
I think I've finally figured out romance:

The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance."

Matthew Wells, 12/22-27/07

Overheard in Harvard Square, part 4

After reading Maureen Dowd's column on the train back to New York, I copied this section into my notebook:

. . . Henry van Dyke writes: “Are you willing ... to own, that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness ... to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings ...? Then you can keep Christmas.”

Then I started writing quatrains:

Resentment is getting stronger.
The products can't match the hypes.
The line for complaints is longer.
Even the wise have gripes.

Critics are snide and vicious.
Children take pills for stress.
In a world that enthrones the ambitious
Nothing succeeds like excess.

How are we meant to live
If we hide from each other's sight?
When morals are relative
Gray is the new black and white.

Reactions are all atomic
And pleasures are met with a frown
When Hope is a has-been comic
And Providence just a town.

(What can I say, the train had just stopped at Providence.)

The past is always unpleasant.
The future's required to be bright.
Nothing is worse than the present
Except for the sins of last night.

"Let's put this all behind us!"
Is the anthem of those who lead
As they constantly remind us
Tomorrow holds all we need.

And then I started working on the Harvard Square poem again, and came up with these replacement stanzas:

Amours that kiss your cheek in Paris, France,
Always present you with the croix de guerre.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

Amours are like a [whirlwind trip]/[week from hell] in France:
C'est parfait always winds up C'est la guerre.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

Passion is just a self-hypnotic trance --
It makes you chase a prize that isn't there.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

We'll let those sit for a day or two and see how they look in the cold fluorescent light of my lower-level basement office. Only the purest poetry can survive in that corporate desert.

Overheard in Harvard Square, part 3

Those who know me well know that I’m a tinkerer. (Actually, those who know me slightly know that I’m a tinkerer, and those who don’t know me at all can probably guess that I’m a tinkerer from the big sign that says TINKERER over my head. It's right next to the sign that says WILL REPEATEDLY MAKE BAD PUNS UNTIL RENDERED UNCONSCIOUS.)

So for the past two days I’ve been playing with the second stanza of the villanelle, because it seems to me to be the weakest one in the poem.

How do I know it’s the weakest? I can’t say I actually know it; it’s a feeling. The other stanzas have something this one lacks, whether it’s a good pun like “meet” or a thematic link that leads naturally to one of the two repeating lines or something indefinable like snap or zing. This one doesn’t have that feeling.

After several tries over egg nog, lasagna, B&B, beef chile and a couple of pints of Guinness, here’s the latest version of that stanza:

“Amours that start like trips to Paris, France,
Will wind up earning you the croix de guerre.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

I’m still going to tinker with this; I want to find a way of saying “Will always get you the croix de guerre” within the metre, like “Always (dum dum dum) you the croix de guerre.” Which means a trip to the Thesaurus in the next 24 hours.

Overheard in Harvard Square, part 2

Okay, so I couldn't wait until the Patriots game. I wrote it during Sports Center.

Here's the complete villanelle in its current form, with a big thank you to that Harvard Square girl who walked in front of Au Bon Pain at 7:53 last night. For the record, this is the first villanelle I've ever written:


OVERHEARD IN HARVARD SQUARE

"I think I've finally figured out romance,"
The young brunette declared in Harvard Square.
"The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance.

“You think you’re in the capital of France
And all it gets you is the croix de guerre.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

“You can make love to thousands of gallants
And not a single one of them will care.
The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance.

“The point is never passing up the chance
To lose at Risk instead of Solitaire.
I think I’ve finally figured out romance.

“Today’s sure thing is payment in advance
To help you meet tomorrow’s love affair.
The dancer doesn’t matter –- it’s the dance.

“Stop chasing after anything with pants
As if you're only Ginger with Astaire.
I think I've finally figured out romance:

The dancer doesn't matter -- it's the dance."

Matthew Wells, 12/22-23/07

Overheard in Harvard Square, part 1

I was walking through Harvard Square last night, taking pictures of things that were still there, when two college-age girls walked past me, one of them (the brunette) saying as she passed by, "I think I've finally figured out romance."

I immediately wrote the line down, and after texting a few people the message: There's nothing like walking through Harvard Square and hearing a 20-year-old brunette say "I think I've finally figured out romance," I sat down in Au Bon Pain with a coffee and a brownie and, realizing that the brunette's words were a perfect iambic line, started writing a villanelle.

A villanelle is a nineteen line poem with only two rhymes, in which the first and third lines of the first stanza alternate as the last lines of the next four three-line stanzas, and then are repeated as the last couplet of a final four-line stanza. The most famous villanelle is Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; like most people, I knew the poem before I knew what it was.

Here's what I wrote, false starts and all:

"I think I've finally figured out romance,"
The young brunette declared in Harvard Square.
"The dancer doesn't matter, it's the dance.

You meet the ones you love by happenstance
Like winning Banco at chemin de fer.
I think I've finally figured out romance.

You can make love to thousands of gallants
And not a single one of them will care.
The dancer doesn't matter, it's the dance.

Stop chasing after anything with pants
As if you're only Ginger with Astaire.
I think I've finally figured out romance.
The dancer doesn't matter, it's the dance."

Initial verdict: perfect final stanza, perfect opening stanza, gallants/dance stanza fits perfectly, and where the foo did chemin de fer come from? (Answer: I spent last week watching The Ultimate James Bond, Volume 3.)

So that stanza goes, leaving me with a beginning, part of a middle, and an end. Since I'll be working on that today during the Pats game, look for some sports metaphors in the next draft.