Poem of the Day; Muldoon and Zevon

My Ride's Here

by Warren Zevon and Paul Muldoon

I was staying at the Marriott

With Jesus and John Wayne

I was waiting for a chariot

They were waiting for a train

The sky was full of carrion

"I'll take the mazuma"

Said Jesus to Marion

"That's the 3:10 to Yuma

My ride's here..."

The Houston sky was changeless

We galloped through bluebonnets

I was wrestling with an angel

You were working on a sonnet

You said, "I believe the seraphim

Will gather up my pinto

And carry us away, Jim

Across the San Jacinto

My ride's here..."

Shelley and Keats were out in the street

And even Lord Byron was leaving for Greece

While back at the Hilton, last but not least

Milton was holding his sides

Saying, "You bravos had better be

ready to fight

Or we'll never get out of East Texas tonight

The trail is long and the river is wide

And my ride's here"

I was staying at the Westin

I was playing to a draw

When in walked Charlton Heston

With the Tablets of the Law

He said, "It's still the Greatest Story"

I said, "Man, I'd like to stay

But I'm bound for glory

I'm on my way

My ride's here..."

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

by Warren Zevon and Paul Muldoon

She stood beside my narrow bed

to check my E.K.G.

She shook her pretty little head

At what's become of me

I thought I glimpsed a path that led

Through rhododendron days

And fuchsia nights to the boatshed

In which we two once lay

But she gazed only at my chart

The valleys and the peaks

Brought back the time she broke my heart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

But she gazed only at my chart

The valleys and the peaks

Brought back the time she broke my heart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

I saw her on Killarney's shore

One morning in July

When I still thought I was a thorn

Trying to find a side

I met her in the little launch

That runs to Innisfallen

Hunched together, haunch to haunch

Trying to keep my balance

But she upset my applecart

She kissed me on the cheek

And I was struck by Cupid's dart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

I was struck by Cupid's dart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

She was a systems analyst

For a dot com company

She said, "You think because we've kissed

I'll be yours eternally

I'll sign another pre-nup

And we'll merge our P.L.C.s

That's why most girls go belly-up

In this economy

But when it comes to a jump start

Your forecast's pretty bleak

The NASDAQ goes by dips and starts

Like MacGillycuddy's Reeks

The NASDAQ goes by dips and starts

Like MacGillycuddy's Reeks

She looked only at my chart

The valleys and the peaks

Brought back the time she broke my heart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

MacGillycuddy's Reeks

That was the time she broke my heart

In MacGillycuddy's Reeks

I was going to post a poem by Paul Muldoon that mentions Warren Zevon but I couldn’t find its name. It was from Muldoon’s 1994 collection, Prince of the Quotidian. I recently got a copy of this poem from my sister but she didn’t have the title either. In the process of trying to find this elusive poem I found that Muldoon had co written two songs with Zevon, one of his (and my) favorite artists. The songs first appeared on Zevon’s 2002 album, My Ride’s Here. So, even though it’s ‘the poem of the day’ I’ve decided to include two pieces by two authors.

The keynote of both songs is humor, found readily in the rest of both Muldoon’s poems and Zevon’s songwriting. Muldoon is originally from Ireland and Zevon was, of course, American. Landscape figures very much into both of their national identities and into both songs. MacGillycuddy’s Reeks are an Irish mountain range in County Kerry. The song interrupts its ‘old-country’ backdrop by comparing the Reek’s peeks and troughs to an E.K.G. or the N.A.S.D.A.Q. In the same way, My Ride’s Here features the landscape of the American West in places like San Jacinto and Houston but, again, Muldoon and Zevon disrupt the setting. They introduce to the song characters like Shelly, Keats, and Byron who don’t really belong in a Hilton in East Texas. Both songs have a duplicitous nature most likely due to the fact that they have two authors but neither song ever suffers from the fact.