Poetry Bus 28th February

Linda Darnell as Amber St. Clare in the Otto Preminger film "Forever Amber" (1947)

based on Kathleen Winsor's (1944) bodice-ripper.

"FOREVER AMBER" FOREVER!

Ms. Winsor, having read "Gone With the Wind"
churned out a saucy manuscript.  She sinned!
You'd think she'd need a handcart, nothing less
to haul four thousand pages to the press.
I guess she felt she needed sprawls of space
to pop the eyes of tightlipped readers faced
with sixty carnal acts of intercourse,
thirty-nine misplaced conceptions, forced
abortions seven and – horrors! – the stench
of scenes where Restoration wenches wrench
their kit clean off for chaps with cash to spare.
One such was Amber. Miss Amber St.Clare,
an orphan lass intent on "getting there."

Can we trust these figures? Sure we can!
One State Attorney General – pious man -
counted and broadcast them! Thus told,
three million copies in quick time were sold.
Ms. Winsor's tome was banned in fourteen States
(Doubtless the Mild Midwest, which procreates
by kindly looks and handshakes, whereas most,
wasting themselves from coast to shining coast
can't bear arms when they wake up shagged-out wrecks
from UnAmerican Activities like sex.)

But Amber's in London! In sixteen-sixty-six
all Englishmen's minds rose above their pr**ks.
The plague was rife! The City went on fire!
Mayday! Mayday!  Could this be Amber's pyre?
Does Winsor's red-hot tale burn down St.Paul's
while Good King Charlie holds his courtly Balls
and many an unmaidened maiden sadly weeps
after an evening visit from Samuel Pepys
who through her chamber window tries to clamber
hoping to find a sport like Mistress Amber?
Alas, alas, the World's Forever Thus
(Excepting those with tickets for the Bus.)

Preminger filmed "Forever Amber" latterly -
Which no doubt paved the way for "Lady Chatterley"
(If reviled by Auntie Beeb and Uncle Sam,
Frankly, my dears, I do not give a damn.)

Readers note.   I hope this poem will buy me a ticket for the Poetry Bus, driven this week by 120 Socks, who admits to being a learner driver.  Keep away from Amber then, m'dear, even though "Amber" featured in your prompt.


(Kathleen Winsor's ms. was reduced by her publisher to a paltry 972 pages.)