mawkish

Today's word is

mawkish

This is an excellent word.  It's also a difficult one in terms of poetry and other arts.  What one person may find deeply moving another might find embarrassingly mawkish.  It's one of the fine lines we all walk.  Also, I have discovered often that the more mawkish I find another person's taste, the more sensitive that person is about it.  Oops.

Busy day today.  Back much later unless something irrepressible bursts forth while I'm still at or near my computer.  But I hope you'll feel free to give it a whack!

*****
Friday (!), 2:45 p.m.
Oh, argh!  Our internet connection!  Need I say more?

Anyway, here's what I sketched out yesterday:

In her satin dress,
the girl singer
with the red slash lipstick
looks older than her years.
She scans the crowd
with cement-grey eyes
calculating which sentimental
buttons to push.
Which mawkish hit of
another year will bring this
audience, this band of regulars,
out of its alcoholic reverie
long enough to clap,
fill the tip jar,
and then stumble home?
Amore?  The moon and a pizza pie?
Or maybe the one about the blue moon?
No, not that one.
You never want to leave
them on a downer note.
That's not why they come here.
They come to cry a little,
sure,
but mostly they come
for a lift.

In a thousand-dollar
imitation sharkskin suit,
the pop star in the ad
sports the same haircut he wore
when he played soccer, and
then again when he
was hopping in and out of
actress' beds
in a freer era.
(We wonder idly if it's a wig.
The highlights are just a tad
too uniform.)
Obviously he's had work done
to look younger than his years.
He's pushing some disc
he's made, the third in a
series of oh-so-calculated
sentimental appeal.
They all sound a bit mawkish
now, these songs of our parents
and their parents,
especially sold this way,
punched up lifelessly,
packaged as American while
sung by a Scot,
arranged by a dead
band leader and completed
with phoned-in superstar duets.
What exact combination
will make this generation
part with insecure wages?
Amore?  The moon and a pizza pie?
No, not for this crowd.
This crowd takes
a blue moon,
a funny valentine,
a little swing, and a sax riff or two --
something bittersweet,
something danceable,
something to clean house to,
something to annoy the kids.

Comments

[moose]

Ach, I didn't make it, Sara. Things are on the busy side these days. But don't write me off yet!! I may just be a little sparser for a while.

[Sara]

Not to worry, Moose! It's all gotten away from me in the last few days, too. I've been working, had to go to an oh-dawn-thirty store meeting on my day off, attended a peace rally for seven hours in rain and wind and snow yesterday after that on only four hours' sleep, etc. So I haven't even posted the words on time the last few days, let alone managed to craft anything out of them.

You can always catch up, as you choose. No pressure. It's supposed to be good for us, but it's also supposed to be fun! I'm always happy whenever you and others manage to pop by.

Must dash. Cheers!