The audience sits, endures
in five straight rows
set at an angle either side of a
centre space;
no middle C.
Grave and self-congratulatory,
precise and conscious, they wait
poised
for the slight intake of breath
and the quick polite applause.
They are notes themselves, written
on a backwater,
clustered together on an old and
yellowing score,
curling, brittle:
elderly quavers and crotchets in
preserved fur;
sad, single minims clutching at
culture and pearls;
ponderous rests and slurs;
some flat, mourning;
some sharp and querulous in tired
tweeds;
bass clef, treble clef,
fluting and blowing, scraping and
fiddling;
a few graceful notes, here and
there,
but mostly breathing heavy
and clearing their throats in the
‘fortissimos’...
Da capo al fine, da capo al fine,
(da capo, da capo, da capo...)
al fine, soon al fine.
What promise brings them here to
play in a graveyard
with dead men’s dreams?
(January,
1987)
