#1837 - boil him into soup and broth

1837

6.9

9.i.25

boil him into soup and broth

concert piece for Peer Gynt in Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King

 

‘to thyself be enough’, says the Great Troll

 

                    

here they come

earthquake boarding school rumble

bad teeth goblins, trolls and gnomes

 

and the king has a daughter

 

at temperature where no one would wash

it’s a kind of creeping up after

heavy on the hoof

 

what they gain in volume they lack in manners

 

if they’re not your children, then whose?

they’ve got rhythm, they’re unstoppable

 

they’re tearing through a mountain in Norway

bright fairylights in the middle

to keep you awake

 

it won’t work

 

they whistle this tune when it’s murder

Inspector Gadget, Sonic the Hedgehog

the Union sneaks up on Atlanta

 

go round

and sinless so

come to a twitchy tumult

 

great cymbal slash at the end of time

of course it was a dream  

 

 

#1836 - the creek begins again

 

1836

6.8

8.i.25

the creek begins again

 

a roar of where it always was

 

a cast of light

the day in parts

to reassemble

 

pond up to a proper height

 

and the sky?

it’s all in our general direction

 

a roar in these treetops too

#1895 - tasty dead things

 

1835

6.7

7.i.25

tasty dead things

 

death hangs where I have sprayed it

death is in my pantry, fridge

death is everywhere I go

 

I eat death

and I shit it out

we spread it on the crops again

 

death is the world’s way

and out beyond there’s nothing but

though nothing ever lived

 

we smell it, waking, as in the web

I empty the morning traps

 

my enemy under the boot until

imperial the drapery

make marble

 

grief is a moment in the dark goes on

 

it is simply a matter of fact

 

the obvious unmentioned

better make a will

 

set out the sombre tones

we’re tombed up as far

 

it’s coming for me

and it’s coming for you

for every world

for every star

 

even for the brightest gods

and they know who they are 

#1834 - 4 x 4, a whimsy

 

1834

6.6

6.i.25

4 x 4, a whimsy

concert piece for Haydn’s 63^rd string quartet in B flat major

 

the same old mountain paths

green valley vista

where flight meets our horizon

 

a thought pause there

just at the top

pages of the day turn

 

slight shadow cast and slow then

lift eyes, cast about

clear as the stars unclouded shine

 

none of us ever lost

I’m only where the mind went

there’s nowhere else to go 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8RZMKZFbjE

#1833 - Sep, Cleg

 

 

1833

6.5

5.i.25

Sep, Cleg

concert piece for Frederick Septimus Kelly’s ‘Elegy in Memoriam Rupert Brooke’

 

 ‘in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme’

                                         –  William Denis Browne

 

Kelly was one of a dozen composers who died in the Battle of the Somme

 

 

as you lay dying

Skyros

not yet ashore

 

I wrote this loss

wrote beyond the words

 

to hang the whole sky

with these few chords

like washing, barely worn

 

nor my oar for the wine dark

 

but the words were yours

I copied them

that they not be lost

 

strings and yet

the sea surge with us

 

we would go on

 

imagine among shellfire

or having not quite got that far

in the gas or at the guns

 

all these who could

who would have been

 

a flourish

and all in my head

a sort of soaring

 

I know this rise

just one grief

in the doom of the world

 

I know and I must tell

it’s how the heart swells bursting

for what was thrown away

 

#1832 - up to catch the day

 

1832

6.4

4.i.25

up to catch the day

a not quite aubade

 

here where I’ve been thrown

and in the act

 

with both paws

on all fours

 

come at it all edgewise

like the bird, suspecting

 

under the words are more

 

these other moments, lives

and just as we see

each infinite

nor thought

 

we are so far in words

there’s no way back

but on

 

and if, by chance

this world’s a globe

we’ll ride it round

face foes

trip wires

 

we’re drowning

just to be

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

notes –

 

up to catch the day

a not quite aubade

 

here where I’ve been thrown

and am already

 

in the act

its very semblances

 

with both paws

on all fours

 

it’s given

but there’s no mind of it

 

as to split

the logical atom

 

under the words are more

 

I come at it all edgewise

like the bird, suspecting

 

all these other moments, lives

and just as we see

each infinite

unthinking it

 

it’s all of a propensity

and my philosophy’s the real

whatever you say  

 

we are so far in words

there’s no way back

but on

and if, by chance

this world’s a globe

we’ll ride it round

face foes

trip wires

 

we’re drowning

just to be

#1831 - a doctrine of inconsequence

 

1831

6.3

3.i.25

a doctrine of inconsequence

aggressive passivity

 

so far as not to matter, I

so small as to go unseen

so soft to the touch and quiet now

 

here by way of coincidence

delving in the underday

 

eyes to the vast of moment

cued, from gone to next

 

living on the whiff of a risk

laughing at my own wit yet

 

as if I’d come from nowhere

and now I’m home again