Musical Ages

When we first met and the radio broke
we’d go to your piano,
and search under the lid of the stool.
The music, written in dots,
I never understood,
but all the words made perfect sense
and we sang those good as gold songs,
wholesome as a white picket fence:
Clementine.
Tiperary
Home on the Range

But soon we were playing thick black vinyl
with jazz, Bach and the blues
on long players we mostly borrowed,
buying rock and roll on forty fives,
entranced by the scratchy pop bubble
and that hit parade you always followed:
54321
Please Please Me
For your Love

Cassettes with flimsy tape took off
but kept snapping:
you were the expert at repairs
spooling with a pencil to find the ends,
joining them up with pink nail varnish
that smelt of pears:
Harvest
Astral Weeks
Blood on the Tracks

The silver CD did for them both,
optical, you said,
nothing to cause friction.
On my own now, more numb than tense,
I dial up a swarm of new tunes
that fly through the air
and make a different sense:
Mercy
Rehab
Poker Face

Oh my darling, oh my darling
It’s a long way to go
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word:

where are you now?

Peter Keeble