Wednesday 19 September 2012

Chaconne


He walks along in personal space
- now - worry a lot,
because there’s a violin case in his left hand.
You never know what’s in a case like that!?

The man stands up and grunts, and starts.
He lightens up strings
as if Bach is here, now,
in present tense: string-tense: a sigh.

Hear sixty three repeating bases,
respectful, alert:
stabbing a bow;
roundabout bow

of melody, rhythm and chord.
Like Hopkins he springs
triumphantly tragic;
grief in Bach’s pain!

Alone! And hear an elbow pull
become scratched - a touch
of homecoming earth-time;
heavenly business.

A solitary man gyrates
and puppets in dance,
grieving, he’s busy,
- a lonely string screams:

so catching and real – Bach’s wife’s death.
Let’s grieve like a Bach;
screech in a bow-string,
grieving vibration.

But Bach is up now – lifting now,
envisioning hope.
Play us to ecstasy:
Heaven and Earth!

Has anything changed since last breath?
A man and his bow,
back in its case, away, walking away
from intimate personal space.

Sunday 16 September 2012

Skimming Hope


I threw a Word
- a big, flat word -
* spinning in seconds *
and the Word rebounded from an ear,
mystically bounced
- sped on -
curtly caught an older eye
(twisted by a stranger’s touch)

but now ~arcing clear and free~
it plops
and ripples out
in hopeful rings;
crying, dying through
one pumping heart.