CODA

The buck Ensigns at the Great Lakes BOQ

Despised what they called fairy music, but,

On midnight watch, when the switchboard

I plugged was silent —the drunks all in—

In the rec room I played barely worn 78s of

Your Second Piano Concerto and found, ah,

My mind was a vast auditorium and could hold

All the chairs of a philharmonic orchestra.

I have read your biographies; all agree —

Your great belly packed with knockwurst

And rotkraut und brot und lager und torte—

You returned from your usual Weinstube

To your ramshackle bachelor rooms to play

With toy soldiers on a field of baize

(A converted billiards table) —war games

Inspired your only opera, so bloody

And Prussian you could not find the notes

For rage: cannon boom, generals fall

Over, men fall over, horses break in two;

Unperturbed, that swabby over there

By the eight ball, listening to the phono,

Is thrilled to carry a spear in this opera

Conceived but not written by you, Johannes Brahms.