1834
6.6
6.i.25
4 x 4, a whimsy
concert piece for Haydn’s
63rd 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
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
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
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
1830
6.2
2.i.25
time’s signature
notes for concert pieces
/ clock series
the lined brow, step worn
wheel to which broken
careful with time
you touch and it crumbles
it’s full of luck as well
think of the colours
we speak of inhabited
in flutter leaf
and on the wing
a toe tap too
calendrical
think of just a month consisting
day night
grey insect whirr
so breeze it
speak of time and it’s gone
will it without witness
in the airless vast?
think of it as a rule you’ve broken
no
note and then next
come chord
glissando
hands tied
all pointing too
bend to this iron will
step after another
wave upon shore
time’s kept
in a box of fits
it overlaps with where we are
see out the window though
see the window through
it’s every swimmer for a self
just as the heart beats on
repeat a pattern
after me
does what I do
sometimes you’ll feel a year beginning
we try it at home
it’s only just occurred to us
these deeps where we’ve been thrown
