The twisteroo in O. Henry’s “A
Municipal report” is that Uncle Caesar,
Who talks like Stephen Fetchit, is
A killer in defense of sweet
Gentility, for Nashville had as much
Romance as anyplace even before
Minnie came from Grinder’s Switch
To be seen from the Confederate balcony
Of the old Ryman, a few doors down
Fromthe synagogue where boy ushers
On high holidays would misdirect
Country fol looking for the Opry,
Betting on how long it would take them
To realize that they were hearing
The wrong kind of nasal drone.
Athens
With a concrete Parthenon to prove it;
Signs in the park commenmorating
A battle fought in 1864 with its 1960
Sequels still inmarked in the grandeur
Of the old L&N depot, the lunch
Counters long since battered down, and
The gritty outdoors platform where
O. Henry once passed through and fugitive
Poets of the 1930s came and went..
In the
Distance glows the Opryland Hotel,
A slick and sanitary place where
I got busted with a mob of chanting
Cripples in 1993 and carted off
To a privatized for profit cell
Which could not hold our crowd,
For Uncle Caesar’s descendants
Now sit in judgement locally.
Even
A fake baroque-style depot and
A fake Parthenon become real,
And “Wildwood Flower” and “Orange
Blossom Special” are wired to
Everywhere; and the twisteroo
Is that the jailbird pop writer
Porter, alias O. Henry, was
Absolutely right: Nashville, though
Unique as Vassar Clements’ fiddle,
Is our common universal romance.
