As she plays
the Schubert
piano piece
Yochana thinks

on Benedict
even as her mother  
stands behind her
listening to her

every note
Benedict's image
fills her mind
the kiss still

feels damp
upon her lips
and cheek
and as she fingers

the Schubert
she senses her fingers
wanting to finger him
her mother says

you missed a note
you are not focusing
Yochana pauses
her fingers

over the keyboard
of black and white
senses her mother's breath
upon her neck

her mother's fingers
tapping her shoulder
and even as
she begins

to play again
it's Benedict whom
she thinks on
and his eyes she sees

in the reflection
of the piano wood
it must flow
her mother says

let Schubert speak
but Benedict's fingers
on her back
as he held her close

are all she feels
as she moves
to the music's pulse
on the piano stool

and as her mother's breath
floats upon her neck
it's his breath
she imagines

is there
and she and he
not there at the piano
but closer elsewhere.

Admiration is the cousin of envy,
as I learned long ago in Austria.
I knew a girl from a village in the Tirol.
I don’t remember her face,
Except for the placid smile
on her berry red lips.
She was not beautiful, but pretty
in a Mägdlein sort of way,
"smelling of crushed daisies and sweat".
But her long, butter-yellow hair,
seemed to have fallen from the sun.
She wore a black, Dirndl vest
that hugged her torso, a white blouse,
and a long. striped, pink skirt.
Even her legs were beautiful,
With tiny, blonde hairs that glistened.
I wished I could be like her:
Simple-seeming, unaware, unquestioning.
I watched her stand on a rocky ledge,
On a little mound like a pedestal
That overlooked an green-blue alpine valley.
She was a poem or an imagined girl
From a fairy tale or an ad for Priumula.
She was  a goddess escaped
from the the netherworld
of dairy barns and milking cows.
I thought that she might never return
there from her lofty peak at the world..
But another girl stood beside her.
A spartan sort with round glasses
And a face like a Pug dog.
She seemed to stand guard,
In a sexless, violent way,
Threatening those who might approach.
I fantasized about pushing her off the cliff,
Just to rid us of her presence.
The altitude was spinning my thoughts,
Wondering what would happen
To this Hummel Fräulein someday.
Would she follow the other youth to Vienna,
Smoke and drink espresso in a café,
Or come back to her alpine home
And milk goats while her children played?
The next day, as if still drugged,
I strolled across the bridge to Germany
And the river path to Freilassing.
There I bought a new, blue blouse
With a heart shaped neck
And brown, corduroy slacks.
It was the best I could do then
And Dirndls were not cheap.
So I spent the summer
As an ersatz Austrian,
No longer an American with jeans.
My freedom was almost euphoric,
Including dodging classes
About Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill,
Die Dreigroschenoper,
Those overrated poseurs!
(Except for Mack the Knife.)
I even attended Mass at various cathedrals,
just to hear Mozart or Schubert dance
up in the arches with cherubs,
or in front of ancient, colored glass
in the gloom of medieval stone.
I accepted that The Tyrolean Girl
And her antique, sunlit style
Were as inaccessible as
Gentian and columbine, mist-shrouded
on high peaks wrapped in clouds.
I once ran to see some up close
And nearly passed out.
But knowing that, I felt their charm
Had descended from the heights
To entice us in the valleys,
With pink striped cloth, gold hair
And amethyst flowers.
They flee past us like time,
Swift as the rivers in Spring.

You must practice, Yochana's mother says, you need to have the Schubert off better. Yochana moves her thin fingers over the keyboard, eyeing the music-sheet on the piano stand. Her mother walks behind her, eyes on her fingers' movement. Angela said some boy pays you attention, the mother says, focusing on the fingers, how they seem too stiff. What boy? Yochana says, pausing her playing, please to stop, eyeing her mother, thinking on the boy Benedict, the kiss he gave her on the cheek. Angela spoke of some boy at school in your class, the mother says, and play on, your fingers are stiff while playing. There is no boy, Yochana says, lying, but trying to do a professional job at it, but not that good as her eyes give her away, proceeding to get her fingers playing over the keyboard once again, bring the Schubert back to life. Then Angela is either mistaken or lying are you saying? Her mother says. Yochana says nothing, wondering how much Angela had said, and how much pressure Mother put her on the poor girl. I've told you about boys, you have no time yet for boys, not while at school at any rate, and it then needs to be the right boy, and I cannot see there being that kind of boy at that school, the mother says slowly, but with emphasis on the word -right boy-, and still the firmness in the way of speech. Yochana comes to the end of the Schubert piece and puts her hands in her lap. She sits stiff. She hears her mother breathing, pacing behind her. Still too stiff in playing, she says, and this boy and I assume there is a boy or Angela would not have mentioned one and I do hope you are not taking to the art of deception, Yochana, as you do not have that skill to any great degree. Yochana turns and looks at her mother. Just a boy in class and it's nothing, she says, never going to mention the kiss on the cheek, she thinks, eyeing her mother's eyes. And what is he up to, this boy? Nothing, just a boy in class who stare sat me. And why does he stare at you? Have you been encouraging the boy to stare? Yochana shakes her head. Her dark hair moves from side to side. Of course not, she says, seeing Benedict near her in her mind. So why does he stare? the mother asks, leaning over Yochana, her hands each side of the piano-stall on which Yochana sits. Maybe he likes to stare at me. Don't be flippant, the mother says, Angela says he seems too friendly with you. Too friendly? Yochana senses herself blush and tries to add distraction by turning and playing a few bars of Beethoven, he's just a boy who stares and jokes. Then discourage him, the mother says firmly, or I will write to the Head and complain. I do discourage him as best I can, she lies, bringing the Beethoven along fiercely. A slap drives her hands from the keyboard and into her lap where she digs them deep between her thin thighs. Don't try and distract me my girl or you will  be pushing me to my limits and you know what that means, the mother says. Yochana looks down at the keyboard, senses the sting of pain on her hands. She nods. I will ask Angela to keep an eye on this boy and you it seems. Angela and her big mouth, Yochana muses, looking at the motionless keyboard, black and white keys. She sees Benedict kissing her again on her cheek just out of the blue that day. It was sudden. Smack on the cheek. Damp, warm. He standing there smiling. She stirred up, but pretending not to be. Understand me? Her mother says, turning Yochana around to face her, gazing into her daughters eyes, through the thin wired framed glasses. Yes, I understand, she says, trying not to look at her mother, attempting to hide her tears coming, the sting of hands. Then go to your room and focus on the English work, otherwise you will get behind with that and you will need that if you are to make anything of yourself at that school, her mother says, standing back allowing room for her daughter to rise up from the piano stall and move. Yochana walks away from the piano looking away from her mother, her eyes watery. And remember, girl, you are only fourteen not twenty one, still a child, the mother says at her daughter disappearing back. Yochana says nothing, but walks out of the music room and up the stairs, one foot climbing after the other in a slow determined fashion. She knows what her mother is implying. She remembers how strict her mother can be. She walks to her room, opens the door and enters, closing the door behind her and leans against it. Tears fill her eyes. Angela's big mouth. No doubt innocently said. Mother pushing it. Squeezing all she could out of the dim girl until it had all she needed. I'll see Angela and have a word. Keep it quiet. Mouth shut. Or I'm for it, I'll tell her, Yochana  says to herself, moving away from the door and picking up the English grammar and lies on the bed. That sort of boy. That kind of school. Was Benedict that kind of boy? What kind was he? She didn't know. Not her mother's idea of a right type of boy. Kiss on the cheek. She felt her cheek where she recalls he kissed her. Fingers feel there. The sting in her hand is still there as she moves her fingers. She puts the English grammar book beside her on the bed and closes her eyes, pushing out tears. She places a hand to her cheek. Rubs it. Takes the fingers from her cheek and puts the fingertips to her lips and kisses, then slowly blows the invisible kisses towards the window, hoping to God her mother doesn't see the invisible kisses flyby and go.

I lay awake tonight,
sleep departs from my weary soul.
It might be the effect of the caffeine i took this afternoon..
Or the moon in it's full bloom.
But i think it's something more.
Something more alive.
A reason with no explanation.
I think...
I think it's her...

The way she walked elegantly towards me, holding the tray of my order.
    I saw flashes of the future;
a bride of mine,walking down an aisle

the way her scent-a mixture of vanilla and rose-caught inside my lungs when she got so close..
  it felt like every  breath i have is branded and exclusively for her

the way she smiled and the way her voice sounded when she asked "do you need anything else?"
    like the melody of a violin to the tune of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria
So gentle and calm and warm

And the way I was hypnotized or crazy enough to respond...
  You .
I need you in my life .
Will you marry me .

I often choose Schubert and not Beethoven though he revered the latter so much.

He achieved sublimity without having to assert unlike Beethoven.
His music is more tender and gentle but it touches the very core of our heart in every measure while Beethoven insisted that his music must be heard..

Schubert was humble and congenial but Beethoven was wild, irascible and hurtful.  If there were gratitude, look to the life of Schubert who owed so much financially to his faithful friends.  

Schubert almost never performed in public--only twice unlike Beethoven.  Greatness can be defined in many ways. In music, I admire the life and personality of the composer as much as his music.  

Mozart was a master of melodies and Schubert was equal. Who could write over 600 lieder?  Dvorak was a great melodist like Tchaikovsky but there's only one Schubert.

Why did I not mention Johan Staruss junior and the other Strausses?  Their music is mainly ball-room music, to be heard for the moment, pleasurable but speaks little or nothing of the larger issues of human existence--they were great but of much lighter weight. I would die for the longing of Schubert's  but certainly not of the Strausses'.

  Some of you might not agree. I live in Melb, a music-lover.  
  Music is my religion

'What they don’t know, of course,
is that you don’t **** with the Hammer.
The Hammer smiles, you smile, you wave the truck
ahead. It’s pretty simple,
for poetry does not make assertions;
philosophy does. When the Hammer speaks,
he speaks of something wild.  You stop your world,
the phony one, the constructed one. It stops
and stops and stops—'

I force open the lock, let in the sun.
The Hammer and I confront synaptic death
each day we live. What’s left is fire now.
‘Welcome to the Republic of the Sane.’
I smile and let the fresh air fill
the cabin, fill their lungs. The Seine is just
a river in France, right? I smile and say,
‘The hard part is over.’—though we all know
it isn’t. I tell them, ‘Wallace Stevens
once lived in this house’—though he didn’t.
Let be be finale of seem, I quote. I speak
with care. This is the current reply: The only
Emperor is the Emperor of ice cream.
We hold our arms heaven-ward, like
we are angels in heaven. Since it’s winter
I have a fire burning in the fireplace.
The kids can have a bedroom to themselves,
upstairs. There is hot water, take a bath…

‘In transit to the blank planet,’ I say.
‘That’s your answer: where we are, a point,
circumference points, vectors maybe,
an asymptotic self-description,
that’s the best answer to your question.’
We sit next to the fire
and listen to music. Tonight it’s Schubert,
Winterreise. I read a little from
The Hour of the Star. We talk about Adorno,
Emil Cioran, Gaston Bachelard, Chaucer.
We talk about poetic thinking. Is
the goal to have
an ultimate clarity or is
the poet’s mind composed of play
and speculation? I prevaricate,
I lie, deceive, evade. We open up
a decent bottle of port. The Hammer
has prepared calamari in a butter sauce.
There’s fresh pasta, fresh bread.
‘My friends, a toast,’ I say. They have to know.
‘Today’s word is vector, a vector like
ticks are for Lyme disease, mosquitoes for
malaria.’ The transmission of disease,
is that what humanity is? ‘Human
intelligence,’ I say, ‘may be the result
of a virus. It would explain a lot.’

Among the things we console ourselves with
I will put other people at the top.
I know, my dear, you tremble at the word
thing. ‘Think to say I and Thou’, you would say
were you here, were you still with me.
That people partake of Being as objects
is only part of the story. Well, perhaps, I err…
perhaps I do. One of the things I read
to the people who come across the line
is this from Clarice Lispector:
'It must be said the girl is not conscious
of my presence. Were it otherwise she would
have someone to pray for and that would mean
salvation. But I am fully conscious
of her presence: through her I utter my cry
of horror to existence. To this
existence I love so dearly.'
It is very beautiful, is it not?

They sat like two birds roosting in a tall tree. Only the tall tree was a room where a fire had been made up, but was not yet alight. It was early autumn and a mild evening. She had not drawn the curtains because there was a still a little light left in the sky. She enjoyed watching the darkness gather before she would light the lamp to sew, to stitch. He had lit a candle on the small table by his chair in preparation for an evening’s reading. He was looking at her slight shape in the candlelight, looking at her small hands folded in her lap, then stroking the cat beside her, then touching her hair lightly; finally she opened her sewing basket.

He rose deliberately, shaking off the stiffness felt in his limbs from a day on their small-holding, and went to the bookshelf behind his chair. As the lamp was as yet unlit the rows of books slept in darkness. He felt their spines, many he knew, and many knew his touch, and as he moved his forefinger nail from book to book there was momentarily an irregularity, a surface he did not recognize. He pulled out the book and took it into the light: Inferno Dante Alighieri.

He thought he knew all his books, most he had read many times over. They were his dear friends, their dear friends because her books were there too. Their library made up a world of thought and imagination. He did not know Dante’s Inferno. He knew of it. He had read many an inscription from it. He had even learned a terzetto from the Paradiso, once, many years ago, in a different life than he led now:

Tu non se' in terra, sì come tu credi;
ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito,
non corse come tu ch'ad esso riedi".

You are not on the earth as you believe;
but lightning, flying from its own abode,
is less swift than you are, returning home."

Holding Inferno in his hands he realised the woman had now drained from her gaze the last dregs of the evening light, and seemed suddenly changed. She was wearing something other than he had thought she had worn previously. Her dress was silk, and long and cream and gold, and securing her hair, a thin golden band. Her shoes were slippers  . . . but she rose from her chair and their colour and texture were lost in the dark shadows that covered the floor. And he, he was changed too: a long green cloak, a toga-like cloak, some kind of cap on his head, his hair, his hair long and grey, and sandals on bare feet.

She lit the lamp and immediately they both saw the painting above the empty fireplace had changed, had been transformed, replaced by Henry Holiday’s masterpiece Dante and Beatrice. The painting shows the couple at the bridge of Santa Trinità in Florence. Beatrice deep in conversation with her friend Monna Vanna ignores Dante’s impassioned stare and stance.

The woman held the lamp to the painting. She knows this painting and remembers in an instant standing before it in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. That day, that lunchtime, she was in love, and her lover stood next to her. She was so in love, and her lover, she knew, adored her. She recognized Dante’s stance and stare because she had seen her lover stand and stare so. Many times. It had been a lunchtime assignation and she had worn all black with almost-pink shoes. And here, and now, they stood again, still lovers, but also the dearest friends, and for the rest of their lives they had so sworn.

He still held the Inferno in his hands, and it was as if commanded by a voice that wasn’t any recognizable voice but a silent message from beyond and afar. ‘Whatever you read will come to pass.’

And so opening the book at random he read, ‘We drew now closer . . .’

He turned to her and said these words aloud. He placed the book on his small table and brought his body in its unusual costume to stand facing this finely dressed woman who wore her fine clothes with the scent of roses mixed with some eastern aloed fragrance. He brought his hand to her pale cheek and noticed the gold ring on his finger and the finely manicured nails, hands that had not laboured today in the 12-acre pasture.

She opened her lips to speak and, rather breathlessly said:

"Le cose tutte quante
hanno ordine tra loro, e questo è forma
che l'universo a Dio fa simigliante.

"All things, among themselves,
possess an order; and this order is
the form that makes the universe like God.

She knew no Italian, a little German from singing Schubert lieder to his tentative fumblings on the parlor piano, but certainly no Italian.

She picked up the Inferno from his small table, and just as he had, opened a page at random and read:

‘We drew aside and found a space . . .’

And so they did, draw aside, and she, with the Inferno in her hand, led him out of their sitting room along the stone-flagged passage to their front door, and lifting the latch opened the door . . . onto daylight, a Florentine street. They were close to the Ponte Santa Trinità, but also to the church that bares its name, with its celebrated Sassetti Chapel brim-full with sumptuous frescos telling stories from the life of St Francis and considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.


*To be continued . . .

Pale leaves fall silently in the dead of winter
I realise I have lived far too long
I was once a bold and outgoing singer
but no longer has life left me any single song-

in the night's thickest snow I wander
the heartless winds they blow loud and strong
tears of forlorn love on icy rocks they flounder
in this chilling hour I weep,  to none do I belong

She comes in
Yochana
with her friend

Angela
a squat girl
with blonde hair

and sit down
in two seats
at the front

of the class
I watch her
from the back

with Reynard
my best friend
the teacher

old Miss G
is writing
on the board

with white chalk
before she
sits down she

looks at me
(Yochana
not Miss G)

there's a hint
of a smile
then she turns

and I see
just the back
of her head

(straight black hair
reaching down
past shoulders)

sometimes when
when she turns
left or right

I catch her
pale profile
and secretly

take a kiss
from my lips
put it down

on my palm
and blow it
towards her

pallid cheek
no one sees
the palm blown

small kisses
then Miss G
plays piano

some Schubert
piano work
and I watch

Yochana's
thin fingers
move along

the desk top
her response
to Schubert

not to me
I sit there
wishing hard

those fingers
were playing
upon me.

Beethoven's Ninth;
Mozart's Thirty-Eighth;
What do they lack
Artistically speaking?
They lack the music of the buttocks,
The celestial odourous ****
Which charmeth all who hear it.
Although admittedly Schubert
Left an unfinished movement
On the floor near his piano
And the whiff was something horrid.

I can tell-
I could just tell
You're hard to sum up, Difficult to describe
Not how-
Or who you are
But the Feeling that night
Like Spring after Rain or how April does Shine
Dew Without Dust
With the Air Thin and Fine

I can just tell

I could tell
Your Grandeur of Love
Reached Father then mine
Further than most and Farther than mine
Having no end
Oh Laborious,  Infinite line
In one glimpse at night

I can just tell

I am able to tell
Our Dreams are alike
Not the Same, I dare say-
Congruent in Virtue
Yet Unequal in Size
Passion Far more
Your words Jump Alive

I can just tell

I can tell-
Aspirations Larger
With beliefs Similar to Mine
Our goals Compliment
Now, our Journeys align
If only we had spoke
We would Forever be Entwine
I can just tell

Do not treat me like a princess
Though I enjoy the pretty things in life
And the joys that money can buy
I know that there is always a price to be paid

Do not treat me like a princess
I may read and write poetry in the morning
With Schubert playing in the background
But let me have a moment with my Scream Queens

Do not treat me like a princess
You may love me and think I am perfect
With all the grace and beauty in the world
But to love is to understand that perfection is a façade

And the truest love of all
Is when you love me
Without my perfection

Gira
la negra,
gira
la luna,
gira
la negra luna,
sobre sí propia,
gira
la negra
luna
de ebonita,
gira la negra luna de ebonita
-sobre sí propia- y canta:

-¡Bah! ¡Canciones! Y músicas abstractas...!

Y, lo que canta, es la Música Viva!
Oye el Viaje de Invierno, de Franz Schubert,
y el Rey de los Alisos,
y El Doble y Ganímedes y Ante el mar,
y de Schumann, Amores de un poeta,
y de Dupare, Invitación al viaje
y La vida anterior...,
y de Chopín, Preludios y Nocturnos:

tú, soñador romántico; tú, doliente elegíaco.
Oye la voz serena,
la voz profunda oye
de Bach -añosa encina,
inmensurable selva, órgano él mismo y templo
de la harmonía-:

tú, sereno y profundo.

Y de Mozart el diáfano y sortílego,
y de Haydn y Franck, la cortesana
y la mística voz, inconfundibles,

tú, gustador de lo pulcro y etéreo.
Los Cánticos y Danzas de la Muerte,
y Sin sol, de Musorgski,

tú, angustiado, febril, hiperestésico;

y Borís Godunov, Borís Godunov, oye,
(bárbara gesta, miedo, sangre, lujuria y fausto)

tú, Sátrapa en los sueños...
Y, catador sutil de quintaesencias,
gusta la mediatinta debussyana,
pesquisidora de inusados timbres
y lontanos acordes, 1
en un dorado ambiente de calígine.
Y, borracho de lumbres y colores,
Óye, de Rímski, Antar y Xeherazada
y el Gallo de oro -vértigo y lascivia-:

mas, si de ritmos ebrio, tú, frenético
danzarín, danza todas las furias de Stravínski
-del sabio y del bufón mezcladas dósis-:
fino humor ricos timbres, forma clara 2
(sobria, o en concertado cataclismo).
Y oye, en la noche, y en Tristán e Iseo,
la voz vigía de Brangane, plena
de lo fatal, o el corno quejumbroso;
si no los Funerales de Sigfrido;
o el Tránsito al Valhalla, milagroso tumulto.
Y tú, plasmado en bronce, los vastos himnos oye,
óye las soberanas sinfonías
con que la voz del Sordo el orbe nutre!

Las acendradas síntesis:
sonatas y quátuors, insólito prodigio, filtros puros:

la Misa en re, misterio panteísta,
denso peán a la Naturaleza!

Y el trágico clangor de Coriolano...:

oye la voz del Indomado Prometeo,
oye la voz del Sordo, oye la voz del Sordo!
Gira la negra luna,
gira
sobre sí propia,
gira la negra luna de ebonita,
gira
la negra
luna
de ebonita
-sobre sí propia- y canta:
-Bah! Ficciones! Y músicas abstractas...!

Y, lo que canta, es la Música Misma!

Apenas vaho sobre el cristal
con ademanes de ceniza, con estelas de niebla,
señala el mayordomo el lugar reservado
a cada uno de los comensales,
y susurra sus nombres con sílabas de ráfaga.
Franz -todos- bebe copas, copas, copas
de un oro ajado, de un resplandor marchito,
una luz madura en otras tierras
diluidas en la memoria.
¿Dónde estarán los compañeros que no ve?
Acaso fueron arrastrados por las aguas de Heráclito
hasta donde el ocaso se remansa y languidece.
Han cesado las risas. Las palabras son ascuas.
Todo es en este instante
desolación, herrumbre, acabamiento.
Huele a manzanas y a membrillos
demasiado maduros.
A través del ojo de buey
Franz contempla los días
que se aproximan navegando.
La ciudad que lo espera le saluda
con sus brazos alzados a las nubes,
enfundados en terciopelo gris.
Paralizado, congelado, el tiempo
va adquiriendo la pátina de estar atardeciendo,
otoñándose sobre el mar,
sobre la muerte, sobre el amor, sobre la música
que se libera, misteriosamente,
de nadie sabe qué prisiones.
Esta música lleva mucha muerte dentro.
El amor lleva dentro mucha música,
mucho mar, mucha muerte.
La muerte es un amor que habla con el silencio.
El amor es una melodía hija del mar y de la muerte:
asciende, gira, enlaza el cuerpo, lo encadena
hasta asfixiarlo despiadadamente.
La nave fantasmal -pero real- navega-
sobre el amor, sobre la muerte
(también sobre el olvido),
y glisa sobre el arpa de las olas,
navega sobre el agua como el laúd sobre la música
(y es que música y mar tienen el mismo origen).
Este mar lleva dentro mucha música,
mucho amor, mucha muerte.
                        Y también mucha vida.
...Y también mucha vida.
No sólo la que testimonia
el hervor de los brazos blanquísimos de las olas
al otro lado del cristal -solar, lunar- del camarote,
sino la que agoniza en el lado de acá.
Abanicos de plumas y de oro  empiezan a girar.
Giran y giran cada vez más vertiginosamente
-acelerando, siempre acelerando-
absorbidos, cautivos, reclamados por bocas abisales,
fraques azules, grises, rumor de besos y batir de alas,
ojos ennoblecidos por las lágrimas,
labios besados hondamente, que por eso
tienen más vida que quitar,
y el giro, el giro, el vértigo del vals,
el del polaco tísico
que escuchaba en la Valldemosa invernal
golpear insistente sobre el suelo la gota de agua.
El vals futuro, felicidad florida
de la dinastía risueña de los vieneses
resucitados cada 1 de enero en los televisores,
supervivientes de un imperio feliz e injusto
que ya no puede ser.
Son absorbidos, chupados, esclavizados
por lo hondo tenebroso. En el embudo
caen y desaparecen gorjeos de las aves
de los bosques de Viena, huéspedes de las ramas
húmedas de los tilos y los abedules,
aroma de grosellas y frambuesas,
de fresas y de arándanos: todos aprisionados
en las redes de escarcha del otoño.
El implacable sumidero
devora tules, sedas, lámparas de luz azulada,
nubes que se suicidan arrojándose
al hueco que termina
en el corazón verde del mar,
en la hoguera sombría y helada de la nada,
en lo fatal, irreversiblemente mudo.
Los invisibles compañeros
contemplan aterrados y desamparados
ese derrumbamiento que acaba en el silencio.
...El silencio que surca el ataúd de caoba.
a sus desvanecidos compañeros.
Con la clarividencia del moribundo
oye su despedida, sus adioses
con voces de violines, de violas, de violonchelos.
Sonaban a diamante y penumbra.
La nave -¿o ataúd?- en que Franz llega,
irremediablemente solo, cabecea sobre las ondas,
las azota su quilla con ritmo sosegado:
-chasquido, pellizcado, pizzicatto sombrío-
entre dos nadas, entre dos nuncas.
...Entre dos nuncas. El recién llegado
contempla el cielo encajonado
entre dos muros, entre dos sombras, entre dos silencios,
entre dos nadas.
Sentado sobre su banco de cemento
saca de su bolsillo unos trozos de pan,
los desmiga. Da de comer a las palomas.

Yochana-
my bird thin,
dark haired,

Schubert loving,
once kissed
now shy, girl;

see how time
has sped
by us both.

How many stars
have burnt out
in that time and space?  

I dreamed of you
at one time,
tucked you away

in my dreams box,
placed you
at the bottom

of my mind's depth.
A photo of the old school
reminded me of you,

the background,
the playing field,
the other kids older

like you and me,
just before
the Beatles' first LP.

Yochana-
with whom
did you share your life?

Who touched your body?
Shared your lips,
sat with you

at the Schubert recitals?
I remember you
in front in class,

your head to one side
as the teacher played
that Schubert piece,

your thin frame,
narrow waist,
you titless,

Reynard said,
of you, he spoke.
I saw how

your hands moved
to the music's flow,
the fragile fingers

mock playing
on the desktop.
Reynard considered

the colour
of your underwear,
I studied you,

your far away,
music tranced stare.
Yochana-

where are you now?
In whose bed
did you lay?

Whose arms
embraced you?
Who fingers searched

you out and on?  
I recall
your bird-thin frame,

wiry arms,
the dark hair
the length

of your back;
how the Schumann piece
had you spaced out

in dream mode,
your eyes closed,
and I –

Benny,
watching you,
you,

unaware of me,
giving you
the desiring stare.

My love knows no Louis Vuitton  or Cartier
she doesn't belong to the city
she lives in a farm with her parents and siblings
in the faraway country.

My love thinks not of manicures
her hands are busy in the soil
the flowers and plants relish their tender touch
from dawn to dusk she does toil

My love didn't go to uni
but she knows Keats, Byron and Shelley
even French, German and Russian poetry
lots of Sartre and Camus--she takes delight in philosophy.

My love is no Maria Callas nor Joan Sutherland
but beautifully she sings Schubert's lieder
opera and folk songs she takes delight in
like none other

My love never had music lessons
how she excels on the piano
she plays Mozart, Beethoven and Bach by ear
at the music-hall the villagers love her as she plays solo

I am the son of old John Mac Gregor
her next-door neighbour
I  went to school never
too shy to date her

Dad and mum said
learn to write poetry
send her a sweet love poem
if she likes it, she will marry you---happily!

Benny's the new boy
in class
he sits at the back

with some kid
called Rennie
while the teacher

Miss G
yaks on
about Schubert

or some feller
putting on
some LP

as they sit
and put on
interested faces

the girl who
smiled at him
on the school bus

is there
looking over at him
beaming like

a new sun
her eyes bright
as fresh stars

he looks
at her briefly
then looks away

storing her eyes
for some
other day.

Miss Schinzer do not undress
they said but she did and so
they locked her in the side
room alone and she heard the

key turn in the lock and that
was that she heard them walk
away along the passage heard
the footsteps getting soft and

softer then silence the silence
of that abbey she went to some
years back as a child and the nun
with her beady eyes said here

one must absorb the silence here
silence is our food and drink and
she remembered the way the nun
empathised the word silence

the way her lips moulded the word
as if it were brand new and not to
be damaged or spoilt but that was
then as a child before the voices

began before the orders were laid
out for her to obey do not undress
Miss Schinzer they had said but her
voices inside said undress take off

garment by garment and as you do
so think of Christ and how he was
disrobed and hammered to the wood
and she did hearing as she undressed

the hammer on nails the jacket and
then the blouse and then the brassiere
and she felt the chill about her *******
how they stiffened she thought waiting

to remove more cloth waiting for the
voice to say undress more of the clothes
and she recalled how Mr Dimpledone had
said the same thing but she was a child

then a girl in the choir but she didn’t ask
why she just undressed and he just stared
at her and said what are you doing child?
but you said so she said no no he said gruffly

be silent unless you want to leave the choir
but she didn’t remember him saying that not
then but couldn’t be sure and the voices said
take off the lower garments and so she removed

her skirt the black one the one that made her
look like a nun she took it off and then removed
her slip and underwear and sat on the floor quite
bare remembering the hanging Christ the hands

curled like ***** nailed to the cross beam his
naked flesh the wounds the blood and she lay
down flat and put out her arms forming a cross
and her legs tight together one foot touching

the other and over in the corner knitting and
humming some Schubert her bossed eyed mother.