Honestly, I never expected to win. But I didn’t even place.
Not even a special mention.
The true-ish story about my mum’s cousin, who really did spend some time in an iron lung because of tuberculosis, and who really did meet and got up on stage with Paul Anka, just wasn’t funny enough for the judges of the contest.
Didn’t they read the poem out loud, so they could hear how I used the rhythm of Save The Last Dance For Me? Kind of…
Didn’t they like the exotic setting of Ostend? Was the mermaid reference too surreal?
I’ll never know.
And so I move on… a little heartbroken, but time will heal this wound as well. At least now, the poem is free. Unshackled from the submission routine and remaining at large to sneek up on you in an unexpected Substack post.
Paul, Paula and the iron lung Loosely based on a true story My mother’s cousin Paula contracted polio when she was fifteen. She spent much of this crucial time stuck in an iron lung. When Paul Anka came to the Flemish shore to sing to factory and fisher folk, She insisted on attending the concert. After all, the seaside is where sick people go to convalesce. What better place than the casino Kursaal. “kur-saal” the curing hall, the location’s propensity to restore was right there in the name. It’s how she convinced her parents that her gleaming kettle wouldn’t look out of place. Petit Nice was lined with folk wanting to experience the glitz of the casino just once. Paula rolled by them and past the posters plastered to the west facade announcing the pop singer. The doors wooshed open. In the glass-encased main room the orchestra sat on on a pillared podium, like zebra fish gathered around a resin tank-ornament. The music swelled in tandem with the waves outside. Paula checked her beehive do, arched eyebrows, and rainbow eye makeup in the small mirror that hovered above her. My mum had overdone it on her cousin’s request. Had to work with what was visible, she said. Most of her body was encased in a submarine. Here the auditorium fills with strum and timbre, complimented by Paula’s lung nocturne. A copulation in the air. Every celebrity needs good publicity. So a few stagehands had built a ramp and they pushed Paula up it onto the stage. There was Paul and there was Paula, almost fainting in the machine that was helping her breathe. But Paul’s breath control was impeccable and he sang Save The Last Dance For Me for the first time. He, with hair slick and wavy like the sea outside, and she … was the tin man’s wife. The dancers schooled around her and started to spin her. She got dizzy, saw sea stars. Paul was magician and she was about to get sawn in half. And then it was over. Paula was wheeled out through a roaring crowd, the chants rising and falling, the atmosphere slowly deflating, the salty night outside dark and a bit damp. The streetlights bounced of her metal vessel, but they were no match for the stage lights. She slipped away through the deep blue streets. While she slept that night, her feet thumped out the rhythm of a song against the metal. Bare feet missing Mary Janes. That night she dreamt the doctor came in with a giant can opener and started to cut into the tank that held her fragile body. When she woke up the next morning, still in the iron lung, she pondered whether her legs had started growing hairs yet, and if they were allowed to grow long, would they fuse her legs together like a mermaid’s.
This was too good for that lame ass contest. You transformed this into a magical experience.
I would have voted for this, Connie. I found your reminiscing humorous and sweet, and the poetry exceptional and touching. I’ve written several such poems about my own family and the ethnic characters that inhabit that world. Well done, indeed!! 🙏