by Charles Kraszewski.
“And if I ever get to heaven
I plan on centuries of conversations
with number 15337
of H.M. Book of Naturalisations
for A.D. 1927.”
A flake of hastily inhaled scone
clung to her lower lip;
she took a sip
of her latte, and eyed another one.
There was no reason for me to reply
to her enthusiastic assertion;
I don’t quite get his verse, still I
would never dare to cast my unlettered aspersion
’pon such a penny-worthy guy.
For when all’s said and done, it’s no small thing
to accept an award
— and that, good Lord! —
from the scented palms of the Swedish king.
And yet, that he’s among the choirs
angelic, how may we mere mortals ever know?
Or chafed by purgatorial fires?
Or — God forbid — broiling several storeys below?
Though his, among all bardic lyres,
alone did thrum in strains Marlovian
Columbo’s doughty dream
(the swarthy Quean)
and her consort, the brash Bolovian?
I don’t begrudge his fame; I know
his show on Broadway’s also (they say) first-rate;
but what about Annie Coelho
from Penarth, same register, 15338,
who always set an extra plate
on Christmas Eve, and never made to wait
the beggar at her door?
Why does she score
so low on the archive researcher’s slate?
She too was part of God’s great plan
as was, not one tittle less, 15336,
good Helen Mary Michaelman,
naturalised by Secretary Joynson-Hicks
as well, who, one night on the Strand
bought an old scruff a cup of tea
and, on Trafalgar Square
(St. Martin’s stairs)
at intermission, treated three?
Forgotten. As is Alice Larsen
of Euston Road, widow, number 15339,
who saved spare ha’pennies in jars and
old stray dogs in Regent’s Park with, “Wait, sir, he’s mine”
before the net fell (though her parson
said “Beasts have no immortal soul.”
Alice knew better.
It kills, the letter;
the Spirit quickens man, dog, and vole.)
And what of 15335,
Solomon Nathan Skomolinsky, the tailor,
who found in Stepney a new life
and the old prejudices — they never fail or
wear duller than a bludger’s knife;
whose patient silence when maligned
is worth much more, it seems,
in God’s ear, than reams
of 15337’s cant,
or mine.