Song Of The English Waitress

excerpts in italics from 'Together We Are Beautiful' by Fern Kinney (1980)

Music drifts up from the restaurant

borne thick and dreamy

on Mediterranean air

al fresco under moonlight

and common raffia roof

romantic meals clink crockery

and friendly couples share

as the English waitress

moves passive, to-and-fro

between blue-chequered tablecloths

of times gone before

  "I don't need love affairs anymore"

The hotel tape is hers to conduct

  "He walked into my life

  and now he's taking over"

and it plays those home-spun verses

that transplant with the foreigners

like a 'welcome' mat

removed from their colder addresses

and stepped off the jet

with their songs in their ears

as once had the English waitress

  "And it's beautiful" say the words

  "Yes, it's beautiful"

Standing on the ledge of my room, looking down

only sixteen, and bathing with dreams

of a warm summer night I could reach out and touch

with her song floating up on the breeze

  "I've gone with better-looking guys

  He's gone with prettier-looking girls"

She came to this island for good

living and working her solitary paradise

In reverie I dreamt her old life in those words

as it seemed she'd left something behind

And twenty years on, I feel I know it for sure

  "I don't need love affairs anymore"

So young, I knew all about love

In truth, it was all at a distance

but the romance of that place 

one could smell on the air

with the song of the English waitress

  "Can't you see? It's the chemistry"

But you sensed in those words was a pain

twisted like a knife to the heart

of a martyred memory of happiness

  "I am the rain, he is the sun" it sang

How pretty does the irony go

  "and now we've made a rainbow"

Remembrance is a hold in the soul

storing only significant treasures

And the meaning of the song and the waitress

is visited upon me through the years

in the fears and the tears and their measures

  "And if the whole world fell in love"

I feel her, I know her, that English waitress

  "just like me and my man"

If you could only run away from hurt

  "this would be beautiful"

But only Time sees you get back ashore

  "I don't need love affairs anymore"

Author's Note

Reviews

[Kerry O'Connor]

This is a remarkable triple portrait: of the waitress as she was captured in the boy's eye, the boy himself, poised on the brink of manhood, wondering what it's all about, and the jaded man the boy became, who has learnt all too well the meaning of the song.

[JenniferMarie]

This is beautiful. Through your words I was able to travel to the mediterranean and was able to visualize the environment. Lovely sentiment. Thank you for sharing.

Jennifer

[writing mojo]

such an affair of the beaten heart...amazing presence your words come out of...amazing stuff

[Narnie]

I'm going to enjoy reading through your stuff. Excellent.

[jenniewren (J.W. Bouwma..]

this is an endearingly sepia toned remembrance of a write - both subjects caught on the cusp of the brink of whattever their next steps should be. this is that one magic moment when anything could be. even if the reality of their worlds after this night becomes only those trite well-trodden everyday paths, this moment exists outside of that, and everything is fraught with delicious possibility...

this made me ache for my own moments of magical possibility

[Bubo]

What a very emotional piece, and this tells me you have loved..........with hurt, the words of seeing deeply what many might try to hide, this young boy on the brink, see's something in a waitress....... and her love for another......perceptive and beautiful.
But you sensed in those words was a pain
twisted like a knife to the heart
of a martyred memory of happiness
"I am the rain, he is the sun" it sang
How pretty does the irony go
"and now we've made a rainbow"

[Sweet_pale_cacophony]

Ah!!..you never cease to surprise your readers..do you...
For me it is very interesting to observe how you so skilfully weave yourself with your characters.One can sense you have been there and seen it all,felt it all ..until you were left numb..but you never say it straight never say it soppy,you take it entirely to another level.You play with the notion of love as one plays curiously with colored cube..you view it from all dimensions,angles and when you have viewed it in such an all encompassing manner.. love but comes out to be bitter sweet and still too slippery to grasp.You have a very sharp view that pierces through people and occasions..you are not only aware of yourself but also of others around..you are just too knowing of them as well.
The lines i want to quote are..
But you sensed in those words was a pain
twisted like a knife to the heart
of a martyred memory of happiness
"I am the rain, he is the sun" it sang
How pretty does the irony go
"and now we've made a rainbow"

Remembrance is a hold in the soul
storing only significant treasures
And the meaning of the song and the waitress
is visited upon me through the years
in the fears and the tears and their measures
Doesn't love float us by in its fears,tears and measures even as we so want to be grounded in the present.

This poem has this very soft lyrical pattern to it..almost like the sweet breeze of spring.I also liked the song a lot..the voice renders the lyrics an unusual charm.

[Alicante lullaby]

i knew it would be dreamy...this is so real and so very much quivering with pain...the poem has an overall dainty,contorted expression..i love it,(stealing Eka's words),you secret romantic.

[.]

You secret romantic, you! This is a story told a thousand times but you captured the poetic nature..(which I would expect)..the waiteress who fulfilled a exotic dream of life and ends up in restaurant in some sunkissed island living the same unfulfilled existence, boy who falls in love with a dream..this is beginning to sound quite melancholy - unfulfilled dreams of love and ambition..but still written with a warmth..really didn't expect this from you..but very glad you wrote it :)

[MissWordSmith]

Ah, so beautiful.. so lost, and then.. suddenly the reader finds themselves in the words... this was really beautiful.. I liked the unannounced rhymes that sprung up occasionally and took me by surprise..

"bathing with dreams
of a warm summer night I could reach out and touch
with her song floating up on the breeze"

wow!