Don Miguel Da Capo

Everyone knows a Don Miguel. he is the One Most Likely to Become a Rock Star who never quite made it. He is the big fish in a small town, still holding court in his forties to a crowd that is half-admiring, half-jeering; still the class joker, still the clown and the only one in his group to still think in terms of what is "cool" and "not cool."
Or he is the one with complete delusions of granduer. The one who learns to play all the cool songs but plays them like a nerd. Whatever he wears, whatever he does he looks slightly ridiculous. But in his head he is irresistable.
In his equally weedy peers, self-deprecation and good nature overcome the opposite sex's unaccountable prejudice in favour of muscles. In a Don Miguel, resentment grows as women fail to fall at his feet. It is this later incarnation of Don Miguel that inspired this poem, although his alter ego above is just as common and just as annoying..

DON MIGUEL DA CAPO.


He plays guitar.

Strumming chords, and humming to himself.
And when he wants to seduce,
draws out a few bars in the classical style,
and thinks he sounds like a Grandee
of the court of Philip of Spain.

He stretches out his legs
in faded jeans, and hikes the collar of his fleece
He is Don Miguel da Capo, brave and suave
and above all,
Tall.
and no woman as yet
has managed to resist his charm.


He plays guitar.

Half hidden in the corner of a room:
A fixture at our parties.
He never plays loud enough to hear
His humming is a strangled whisper
And no women to my knowledge yet has swooned
Or begged our Mick to play her one more encore.

Yet he remains sanguine,
For he is Don Miguel da Capo,
and all must see the grandeur of this man.


Geraldine Moorkens Byrne

1.