Yesterday, while I was out for a walk, a car passed by with music blaring at a preposterously high volume, and I was suddenly inspired: maybe I should blast poetry from my car. Think of it: a wan and well-aged English teacher driving around town with Wordsworth exploding from the windows. I could cruise the streets with a fine British actor’s rendition of “Lines Written in Early Spring” soaring out of the car at the highest possible decibel level. Late on a Saturday night, I could drive among the bars and bistros and amuse the revelers with Richard Burton reciting “Daffodils” at a volume that reverberates and booms for blocks around. I assume that a lot of young male drivers blast their music out to the streets in the hopes of getting wandering young women to glance their way, and perhaps I could have some kind of similar luck. Being a long-ago divorced guy in my weathered years, maybe I could convince some worn but fine-looking woman to look my way if she hears lines from Paradise Lost pouring out of my car. Maybe a gorgeous lady in her late 60’s might swing a wave my way when she hears Hopkins’ words soar up from my windows with a deafening kind of charm: “Nothing is so beautiful as spring – when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush”. Alas, surely I’m deceiving myself with these foolish daydreams, but at least I’m fairly certain I could impress (well, maybe) my young students if, when I pulled up to school on a Friday night to chaperone a dance, the voice of Will Smith was booming a Langston Hughes be-bop poem from my CD player. Maybe the students would gather around my car and say things like, “Hey Mr. S, that’s a cool poem. Can you turn up the volume?” Or maybe (more like it), they’d just smile politely at their odd and antiquated English teacher and turn back to the sounds of Slipknot thundering out from the gym.
© 2010 Hamilton Salsich
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