Vox Populi
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Ron Smith: Berlioz
Richmond, Virginia
I’m reading about slavery in Zanzibar
and Christianity and capitalism, and Berlioz,
our neighbor’s one-eyed cat, strolls up to me
on the patio, bows his head for a brief massage.
He has no collar. I see no fleas. The composer
hated Rome, my favorite city, was so wildly
romantic he devised intricate plans to murder
his fiancée and her lover –oh, and her fat mother.
You know, pistols and poisons, an elaborate disguise.
Somewhere in the south of France, he changed
his mind and went back to the Villa Medici
to resume his grumpy life. Nice. The cat turns,
saunters, almost liquid, into the garden to find
Delores. He likes me, but adores her. Most days,
you can glimpse his darkness reclining in the shade
under her SUV. He’s no longer flinchy around us.
Yes, we feed him, as Janet knows and, yes,
he’s shredded the rubber seals on the back
and side doors, only managing to get inside
thrice, and only because we left a door ajar.
No! sends him right back out. (I don’t think
I’ve ever used the word thrice in a poem before.
If this is a poem.) Berlioz’s scalped hindquarters
have healed now, uniformly a rich gray again.
The raccoon or possum seems to have done
no permanent damage. Paris is my second
favorite city. Here’s the composer on its
“Three Glorious Days”: “I was finishing
my cantata when the revolution broke out …
dashed off the final pages … to the sound of
stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering
on the wall outside my window. On the 29th
I had finished, and was free to go out and roam
about Paris till morning, pistol in hand.”
I’ve never asked Janet how he lost his eye.
Or, for that matter, why she calls him Berlioz.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Ron Smith
Ron Smith grew up in Savannah, Georgia, attended University of Richmond on a football scholarship, where he was a double major in Philosophy and English and also played on UR’s Tangerine Bowl Championship team. Though he has traveled widely, Ron has settled in Virginia and was Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth from 2014 to 2016. His work has appeared in The Nation, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, New England Review, and many other periodicals and anthologies. His most recent poems can be found in Plume, Blackbird, Cold Mountain Review and elsewhere. He is currently Consultant in Poetry and Prose at St. Christopher’s School in Richmond. Ron Smith’s books are published by L.S.U. Press.
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Yay, that’s a wonderful turn. I am grinning from ear to ear. LOVED the poem. Thank you for cheering me up.
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Thanks, Rose Mary. I look forward to reading your responses every day.
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On Ron S’s “Berlioz”:
“If this is a poem…” you say at one point. Well, Ron, for my money, it sure is and a damned fine one. Often what excites me in a poem is the way in which it can make improbable connections. Cat, Rome, music, what have you– you thrown them all together in a way that, once I’d digested the whole, struck me as absolutely seamless. Bravo!
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Great poem. I love now the two Berlioz! Do you know his Symphonie Funebre et Triumphale? For me, he is the composer who thought his music was about one thing, but it was eventually about another. As delightful as Haydn, but Hector didn’t know it, as he was so over the top with mental preoccupations born of his own time, he couldn’t appreciate the enduring beauty and strangeness of his work. Also, one of the only composers whose first instrument was the guitar! He would later have made a great Beatle! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvQn3bpwC2A&list=RDAvQn3bpwC2A&start_radio=1
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I love this symphony! Thank you, David.
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Danger in Rome, Paris, and Virginia, and in such fine music. Bravo (and meow)!
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meow.
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Starting my day with a grin. Thank you.
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Me too, Barbara.
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I like this, “keep you on your feet,” rambling travelogue through the poet’s conscience, cat and composer in and out of the portals of incidence. It is a collage, that picks you up in one place and drops you off at another. I like it, and was glad, everywhere we went, grateful we didn’t have to commit (or witness) murder, and know the resilient cat is still underfoot.
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It’s a masterful poem.
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Ah that old curmudgeon Berlioz. He once said “Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its students” — something I have repeated a lot during my 82 years on this fabulous earth. I love his music. I love the one-eyed Berlioz in this poem, too. Love the seamless fluidity of it, and how it travels & travels.
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yes.
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A wonderful poem. A wonderful start to my day.
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Thanks, Christine!
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