I’m not sure if I would call this a poem – it feels a bit more like a piece of prose, with lines broken up … but I’m loving it. Thanks, Garrison Keillor (so often you pick crap poems, dude … but every now and then … there is a gem)
“Great Cathedrals” by George Bilgere, from The Good Kiss: Poems
Before a date, my college roommate
Used to drive his candy-apple red Camaro
Down to the car wash and spend the afternoon
Washing, waxing, vacuuming it,
Detailing the chrome strips, buffing the fenders,
Spraying the big expensive tires
With their raised white lettering
That said something like Intruder
Or Marauder, with a silicone spray
Until they were slick and dark as sex.
He polished that car as if each caress,
Each pass of the chamois, each loving
Stroke of the terry cloth would increase,
By measurable degrees,
The likelihood that in the immaculate
Front seat, with its film of freshly applied
Vinyl cleaner, at the end of a cul-de-sac
Somewhere above the campus,
She would consent to be rubbed
And buffed just as lovingly.
We do what we can,
And if God is no more impressed
By the cathedral at Chartres
Than by a righteously clean and cherry
Camaro, at least He can’t say
We haven’t tried
With all our might to conceal our fear
That we have little else to offer
Than stained glass or polished chrome,
The elbow grease of our good intentions.
So I’m happy to see
That in the Christmas card photo he sent
Mark stands, balding now,
With a dignified gut, a pretty wife,
And a couple of nice-looking kids, in front
Of the great cathedral
Like the sweet vision of a future
He’d been vouchsafed one day
Long ago, through Turtle Wax
On a gleaming hubcap.
Bitchin’ Camero. And the tone does suggest some sort of wistfulness at the end; but at the same time, there’s something slightly weird going on in the relationship between the “aww” elicted by the image of the family in front of the cathedral and the “eww” brought up by a make-out scene on car seats that have been slicked with that vinyl protective stuff. As though the speaker’s friend’s family is the ultimate product of “product.” Maybe if the piece had been wrought more formally as a poem, this issue wouldn’t come up as strongly. Not that it’s necessarily bad it did.. And anyway, I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for posting.
Jon – ha! I’m a sucker for the ‘awww’. I didn’t see it coming in this particular poem so it got me.
But the lack of formality is one of the reasons why I think the Keillor site is hit or miss. He picks a lot of poems like that. Howver – I’ve discovered a lot of great stuff thru him, so it remains a daily pitstop!
I’m going for the “awww” today too. Garry did a good job with this one. It could use another pass or two with the rag, but I like the off-the-cuff feeling. Thanks for sharing it. I’m going to check his site.
Ooops! I see he didn’t write it. Still like it tho.
Chai-rista – yeah, I should have been clearer! Keillor picks a poem a day – he kind of edits it – it’s a morning radio show on NPR. And some poems I really think are dreadful – you know, your typical bad poems, which are basically just lists of adjectives, with no conclusions or revelations.
Red apples.
Frosty windows.
My mother is dead.
Starry night.
Red plums.
hahahaha You know. Crappy poems.
But I love Keillor’s site because sometimes he’ll post a poem that just pierces right thru me – something I’ve never even heard of!!
My favorite part is this:
We do what we can,
And if God is no more impressed
By the cathedral at Chartres
Than by a righteously clean and cherry
Camaro, at least He can’t say
We haven’t tried
With all our might to conceal our fear
That we have little else to offer
Than stained glass or polished chrome,
The elbow grease of our good intentions.
“It could use another pass or two with the rag”.
Yeah, like noticing that you don’t put Turtle Wax on a hubcap – anyone who writes that should have their rear end buffed with a belt sander, something I’ve felt about Keillor (I don’t know the poet) for years.
I really like it except for the equating of Chartres with the Camaro. The inner aesthete in me has to bow to the inner Heinlein disciple who believes that someone who can put together Chartres is more valuable to the race than someone who can only wax his car. But most of us do what we can, which is all God expects us to do, and I like that sentiment.
I love Keillor, have for years. I was thrilled to see this writer’s almanac site – and it’s my first stop every day.
I also used to love (he doesn’t do it anymore, and I’m bummed!!) his advice column on Salon. He was “Mr. Blue” – that was his moniker – and some of his advice was so poignant and well-written I still have the print-outs.
Sadly, Salon gave Keillor and Camille Paglia (who wrote a column for them – just awesome stuff) the boot when they went subscription – but I wish he’d revive Mr. Blue. It was good stuff.
I don’t think Keillor’s on his “A” game any more, and hasn’t been since that European sabbatical. I think it shows in the high percentage of crap poems he selects. His politcs are execrable, but I can excuse that if the rest is good.
I have some tapes from the glory days of Lake Wobegon, and the new stuff does not measure up. I used to listen just for the occasional glimpse of the past, but when he led a cheer on the news of Reagan’s death, that was it for me. I don’t usually avoid entertainers on account of their politics, otherwise I’d have nothing to watch or listen to. But having been in the USSR as the “Evil Empire” treatment was having its effect on Soviet behavior, I just can’t stand that kind of ingratitude. If APHC had been up to his old standards, I might have thought twice, but his recent low quality output made the decision easy.
Exhibit # 965: Why I Don’t Allow Current-Day Politics On My Blog