Your editor realized it was dumb not to have put the vid of these Kenyan kids up top when I posted Charlie Keil’s poem (which they helped spark) so…
ted talks this morning one on laughter makes you smarter
another by 93-year old fitness freak got a few yucks
then I went to Drum & Dance Kenyan Children**
for the umpteenth time but put the melody on borrowed tuba
spread word to moms and teachers
make some points on podcast outreachers
“m ngu vaan a ye
m ngu vaan a yo”
A B B A of merengue
always one way to go
4 on the disco floor
by little boy in blue rite band
plastic bucket resonates
his aim is true with stick
a single……a double
powerfull mini-tricks
clap on the one and three
hop and clap simultaneous
hop replaces clap instantaneous
fullstop fasc with smiles and rhymes
borntogroove from supremes to sublimes
gets everyone out of playdough’s cave
renders obsolete the stale techno-rave
***
Stick and Move
I read Keil’s “laughter” a few times and watched the video a few times, too…The groove of the poem and the music and the dancing and that kid on the bucket/drum — isn’t there an expression “can’t beat it with a stick”? Well, HE could!
I told you, recently I think, about my liberal arts physics class, nothing in there, I don’t imagine, that would help anyone pass an actual physics test, or “do physics” (whatever that might be) — but he told us some neat things — e.g. loud music at parties has a physical (physics!) effect on the body, something like fight or flight stress I imagine (teacher didn’t like loud!) and that elevated state makes people feel like they’re excited/having fun.
Maybe having to get close to hear each other helps too.
Anyway, Keil’s stale techno-rave line got me to that. I don’t know TR music so I got a sample from YouTube — I know people like it, not out to yuck anyone’s yum (as the very young people used to say) but for me, the difference between that and the Kenya Children groove is the difference between being shoved and being lifted? Both move you, I guess.
Keil’s poem leans hard (for me) towards the lifting side. And, is that a drum shape?
A little off track (a regular feature…) his text brought to mind another “compare-and-contrast.”
Robert Hunter was asked about “Dark Star,” (his lyrics/Grateful Dead) he said something like (I looked it up) “… it says what it means.”
I like “Dark Star,” but Keil’s poem says more about what the music means.
— Phil Greene