Sunday, November 25, 2012

Tell Laura I Love Her


When I was a freshman, I remember 
I’d write a poem every other day or two 
To a girl two years my senior; 

She’d write one back too, 
But to this day I don’t remember 
What happened to them, 

But I can tell you one thing— 
I didn’t write anything 
The day she went away. 



4 comments:

  1. This little retro-powerhouse generator brings it all back.

    Those tremulous quavering dorm solitudes, those sopping boy-hankies ...

    This poem makes me feel like remembering how it must have felt to be one of those ancient Tommys who would probably, if allowed, have dueled Petrarch in a chicken run off the Malibu cliffs in turbocharged four hundred horse chariots simply for the love of some ordinary teenage female human in clean white ankle socks.

    Tell Laura I Love Her (Ray Peterson, 1960)

    The song now seems oddly prehistoric. I've never texted nor owned a mobile but I am not too far gone to acknowledge that in this day and age Laura would have possessed such devices, Tommy would have been in contact, Laura would have said, Don't be silly stupid, I'll do you without the damned ring.

    Laura and Tommy were lovers
    He wanted to give her everything
    Flowers, presents, but most of all, a wedding ring

    He saw a sign for a stock car race
    A thousand dollar prize it read
    He couldn't get Laura on the phone
    So to her mother, Tommy said

    Tell Laura I love her
    Tell Laura I need her
    Tell Laura I may be late
    I've something to do, that cannot wait

    He drove his car to the racing grounds
    He was the youngest driver there
    The crowed roared as they started the race
    Around the track they drove at a deadly pace

    No one knows what happened that day
    Or how his car overturned in flames
    But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
    With his dying breath, they heard him say

    You know what...

    But then again without all those prehistoric Lauras where would our fictive poetic romances, our private emotional mythologies, be?

    And would we even miss them.

    A half century ago, it was so easy to be caught up in all those wild and foolish things... with, of course, the variably willing assistance of A Crazy American Girl.


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  2. Of course it wouldn't even have been at the dorm stage, yet.

    Home room solitudes, more like, one supposes?

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  3. You're right, Tom--too early for storming the dorm stage gates and home room too studious—more like study hall where an infatuated teen-age boy could indulge in his fantasies by writing romantic poetry to a “woman” somewhat like this one. Let's rock!

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