Today has been a difficult day he thought, as there on his desk, finally, lay some evidence of his struggle with the music he was writing. Since early this morning he’d been backtracking, remembering the steps that had enabled him to write the entirely successful first movement. He was going over the traces, examining the clues that were there (somewhere) in his sketches and diary jottings. They always seem so disorganised these marks and words and graphics, but eventually a little clarity was revealed and he could hear and see the music for what it was. But what was it to become? He had a firm idea, but he didn’t know how to go about getting it onto the page. The second slow movement seemed as elusive today as ever it had been.

There was something intrinsically difficult about slow music, particularly slow music for strings. The instruments’ ability to sustain and make pitches and chords flow seamlessly into one another magnified every inconsistency of his part-writing technique and harmonic justification. Faster music, music that constantly moved and changed, was just so much easier. The errors disappeared before the ear could catch them.

Writing music that was slow in tempo, whose harmonic rhythm was measured and took its time, required a level of sustained thought that only silence and intense concentration made properly possible. His studio was far from silent (outside the traffic spat and roared) and today his concentration seemed at a particularly low ebb. He was modelling this music on a Vivaldi Concerto, No.6 from L’Estro Armonico. That collective title meant Harmonic Inspiration, and inspiring this collection of 12 concerti for strings certainly was. Bach reworked six of these concertos in a variety of ways.

He could imagine the affect of this music from that magical city of the sea, Venice, La Serenissima, appearing as a warm but fresh wind of harmony and invention across those early, usually handwritten scores. Bach’s predecessors, Schutz and Schein had travelled to Venice and studied under the Gabrielis and later the maestro himself, Claudio Monteverdi. But for Bach the limitations of his situation, without such patronage enjoyed by earlier generations, made such journeying impossible. At twenty he did travel on foot from Arnstadt to Lubeck, some 250 miles, to experience the ***** improvisations of Dietriche Buxtehude, and stayed some three months to copy Buxtehude’s scores, managing to avoid the temptation of his daughter who, it was said, ‘went with the post’ on the Kapelmeister’s retirement. Handel’s visit to Buxtehude lasted twenty-four hours. To go to Italy? No. For Bach it was not to be.

But for this present day composer he had been to Italy, and his piece was to be his memory of Venice in the dark, sea-damp days of November when the acqua alta pursued its inhabitants (and all those tourists) about the city calles. No matter if the weather had been bad, it had been an arresting experience, and he enjoyed recovering the differing qualities of it in unguarded moments, usually when walking, because in Venice one walked, because that was how the city revealed itself despite the advice of John Ruskin and later Jan Morris who reckoned you had to have your own boat to properly experience this almost floating city.

As he chipped away at this unforgiving rock of a second movement he suddenly recalled that today was the first day of Epiphany, and in Venice the peculiar festival of La Befana. A strange tale this, where according to the legend, the night before the Wise Men arrived at the manger they stopped at the shack of an old woman to ask directions. They invited her to come along but she replied that she was too busy. Then a shepherd asked her to join him but again she refused. Later that night, she saw a great light in the sky and decided to join the Wise Men and the shepherd bearing gifts that had belonged to her child who had died. She got lost and never found the manger. Now La Befana flies around on her broomstick each year on the 11th night, bringing gifts to children in hopes that she might find the Baby Jesus. Children hang their stockings on the evening of January 5 awaiting the visit of La Befana. Hmm, he thought, and today the gondoliers take part in a race dressed as old women, and with a broomstick stuck vertically as a mast from each boat. Ah, L’Epiphania.

Here in this English Cathedral city where our composer lived Epiphany was celebrated only by the presence of a crib of contemporary sculptured forms that for many years had never ceased to beguile him, had made him stop and wonder. And this morning on his way out from Morning Office he had stopped and knelt by the figures he had so often meditated upon, and noticed three gifts, a golden box, a glass dish of incense and a tiny carved cabinet of myrrh,  laid in front of the Christ Child.

Yes, he would think of his second movement as ‘L’Epiphania’. It would be full of quiet  and slow wonder, but like the tale of La Befana a searching piece with no conclusion except a seque into the final fast and spirited conclusion to the piece. His second movement would be a night piece, an interlude that spoke of the mystery of the Incarnation, of God becoming Man. That seemed rather ambitious, but he felt it was a worthy ambition nevertheless.

Das Leben ist eine weite Reise, so sagt man,
eine weite Reise über das Meer,
ein Anstieg bis auf hohe Berge,
ein Hinabsteigen bis ins tiefe Tal.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, so sagt man,
eine Reise ohne Wiederkehr,
die jeden Tag nur vorwärts schreitet,
bis zum letzten Lebensziel.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, so sagt man,
die einen Anfang kennt und auch ein Ende,
voll Gefahren und auch vielen Mühen,
mit guten und mit schlechten Wegen.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, das weißt du,
deine Reisen, die du unternehmen musst,
die allein dir aufgetragen ist
und die nur du zu Ende bringst.
Dein Leben ist deine Reise, das weißt du,
mit vielen Stationen von Anfang an,
sie alle kennst du und sie prägen dich,
was aber kommen wird, ist noch verborgen.
Dein Leben ist eine Reise, das weißt du,
mit vielen Windungen hin zum letzten Ziel,
geh nur mit Mut und Zuversicht,
blick doch nach vorn bei jedem Schritt.
Das Leben ist eine Reise, das ist dir und mir bekannt,
ich wünsche dir, dass du das Ziel erreichst
und dass dein Weg geleitet sei
von treuem Schutz und Segen.

After the painting by Dana Schutz

Notice the lid’s up on my piano,
to keep the strings dry.
Instead of a pool on the shiny black
hood the water just slides away.

It rains blue rain
here on the prairie,
big clouds, blue rain
coming down in arrows.

My hair’s a mess,
but I don’t care
bare-foot pianist me,
firm fingers on the keys,

you see I’m playing
Frederic Rzewski’s  
Winnsboro Blues,
those **** Cottonmill Blues,

Oh Lordy,

You know and I know,
I don’t have to tell,
Work for Tom Watson,
Got to work like hell.


*For James who likes his poetry with music

sure, i still live with my parents, can you even begin to comprehend the renting cost of living within the M25? near impossible to attain, i've seen how young people live in shared accommodation, this one Spanish girl who wanted to get a one-night stand with me, she tried to fool the taxi driver by screaming ****, subsequently jumping out of the taxi... the taxi driver hollered at her, i comforted him: i'll pay, don't worry... she lived with... 3 homosexuals... she was so drunk that night... she wanted that cocoon ***, under the bed-sheets... not for me... she was too drunk to begin with... at least in the brothel we do it under dimmed lights... but fully exposed... she called me an angel... later that day she tried to do it again with me, first pretending to relax me by taking a bath with me, we went to the Notting Hill carnival... she must have been talking to her homosexual gurus about my, ahem "impotence"... funny, that, i never seem to be "impotent" in the presence of prostitutes... perhaps she just put me off by jumping out of the taxi & not paying the ******* fare... Tamara... yeah... oh i remember Tamara like it's me drinking coffee yesterday... peer cohabitation... even if you're a drug dealer... it's... *******... squalor: or nearing it... i don't mind people thinking i'm a loser for living with my parents... but... round here... i do the house chores... i do the cooking... my mother has arthritis so she can't do certain tasks... i write my father's invoices... i... get along... am i missing out on casual ***... if i'm not paying for it... i'm not having ***, i'm having a hard time... we met, casually, sure... but the rest of it... out of the window... gone... one redeeming aspect of meeting Tamara, ****-head Tamara... a morning coffee & a robin visiting me in her garden... pretty little bird... cocoon ***... no, thank you... let me just sleep this night... second night still no ***... i was put off! immediately! what sort of woman jumps out of a moving taxi screams **** so as to avoid paying for the: ******* fare?! **** that? exactly... **** that! well, what's the alternative, sure, i could pitch up a tent in Bower Wood... live off acorns... sometimes there's only compromise to be met, maybe that's why i really enjoy talking to old people on park benches, smoking cigarettes drinking a beer, asking them, are you o.k. with me doing this? it always is, since the conversation "goes somewhere"... i know that cohabitating with your parents makes you come off like some Oedipal implosion, but then again: i'm more attached to my father than my mother... if i were living with my peers, i'd be living in a semi-squalor... living with my parents makes me a custodian of the property, living in rented accommodation, ensuring the toilet was clean, the kitchen was clean... **** imploring them to ******* from playing video games while i'd do the cleaning... would, technically make me their slave, their *****... i'll write poetry & the pseudo-science of this art for free... why? i feel like it... it feelz... right... i'm here for the long-run... i'm not looking for short-term investments... i'm looking to yawn for 100 years at least... rough up my knuckles... buckle my tongue Horace! we're going to have a proper party... we'll make it... Pompeii! ******* slags & nunces of the WASP scene... what other living / shelter arrangements are there, left?! the homeless shelter... it's a social stigma to have parentage, to be still living with them? last time i checked, they're mortal... i'll be the one who inherits this house, this garden... plus... i have two libraries of books & c.d.'s & vinyls to mind... i can't, just, move, these! i drink a lot... yet still living in the confines of a... ah... ha ha... an "authoritarian regime"... guess i must be a: good boy after all... but i'm not going to fill the pockets of Saudi or Pakistani landlords... even if that might get be away from the WASP social stigma of living with your parents... like... by 35 i'm not doing all the household chores... i'm not cooking the food... sure... i should be stigmatised... but if i'm involved in giving household involvement... what's the problem? if  living among peers would imply living in a semi-squalor... just so that... hey... i just might land a one-night-stand... with a Spanish broad that decides... it's easier to jump out of a... ******* moving taxi rather than pay the fare... who shares a house with 3 homosexuals... even i think my life's ****** up... but then i went down the psychosis spiral aged 21... not many people do... my language skills: elevated...  like... the English really think they have rightfully inherited the Latin transcript, rightfully? without doing what other European peoples have done, employing diacritical markers?! sometimes i think that i'm walking around, ******* Neanderthals when interacting with these people...

oh... i've seen how it happens... it's not about
entertaining my delusions...
it more about the medical profession taking account
of when: regression is performed...
lucky me: for not dreaming much...
i don't think i can be implanted with false
memories... i was abused as a child:
as a child... being in a peer group:
you're bound to be... period...
outlier involve... walking down a street,
being asked by your elder peer
to open your mouth... snapping it closed...
getting spit in the face...
hello! ******... fellow... whatever...
ROT!
English is my home... England...
does it have to be?!
VER-ROTTEN!
      time flies when... you've been
subjected to pills that make you **** your
bed... you come off them...
you see the whole world are sort of...
the retardation of backwards...
it's fun to watch...
but the "fun" soon ends...
and you simply watch...
lost souls...
you get to build up an empathy...

even with the song:
WUMPSCUT: MADMAN SZPITAL
(SKON REMIX)...
the entrance lyrics read:
nie, przyjęty do szpitala...
not admitted to (a) hospital...

     oh i was diagnoses as psychotic...
schizoid... blah blah...
but... was i ever in a mental health unit?
no... no, last time i checked...
once one psychiatrist tried to play the regression
game on me, i was simply told to:
roam free...
so much has happened since my,
"initiation" circa 2007...
the world has become unrecognisable...

imagine that: diagnosed as mad...
but not admitted to an asylum...
hello "new" asylum... hello "new",
"society"...
it almost feels like... the psychiatrists
tested me for identifying regression testing...
if this "one" gets out...
let's just see... what havoc he might wreck...
to reiterate... i was diagnosed as
mad... but... they didn't care me...
i'm still waiting for my reprimand...
i had sessions witch psychiatrists who
had to invite... medical students... to overlook
the "interview"...

if my barber took pictures of me
before & after...
if my steward supervisor took pictures
of the back of my head with a high-viz.
reading: steward on a high-viz. vest
then... i must be a highly relieved high-agony
animal about to be released into the wilderness
of society... about to...
madden them up!
trivial pointers to look forward to!

but, i wasn't, kept, in an, asylum...
psychiatry supposed me to be more useful...
out, in the, open!
personally? it's no longer entertaining...
it has become a yawn...
hier ist: hier jetzt...

    as it turns out youtube is still the same old
jukebox like it used to be...
for years i've been looking for it...
each passing year i felt disappointed...
what has changed?
the algorithm is pretty much the same...
but it has been given a category "glitch"...
i don't know how for so many years
the bar just below the one or two adverts
just below a music video went-amiss...
oh, it's there: the old algorithm where it automated
a thesaurus sort of search & end results
fed you... similar content...
2021 was the year i wasted so much time
trying to find new music but instead enlarging
my head to watermelon proportions watching
****** opinion videos, ****** political videos...
why did i miss the bar just below the adverts
that sometimes reads:
SIMILAR, DARK WAVE, POST PUNK: ****'s sake:
MUSIC!

it's only 2 hours into 2022 and i'm navigating
youtube much better...
you will not find me watching commentary videos,
not since i've found this: filtering process...
that YOU, yes, YOU have to do...
nothing's wrong with youtube... it's still the same
place it was back in 2016...
the algorithm just became more fiddly...
you're simply not given automated suggestions...

to prove my point... i was in Poland once
& the algorithm had a "glitch"... for about 2 hours
i sat down & clicked on suggested videos,
which turned out to be a rabbit hole of similar content,
i actually made a rubric on a piece of cardboard,
i still have these two pieces of cardboard...
new bands, new music...

it is only circa 2hours into 2022 & i'm finally navigating
the site like i ought to...
the Jules Holland Hootenanny finished at
half past 1am... eh... everything these days has to
be overtly black... sorry...
but that's how it is: i don't even know whether
i want to feel anything about it...
of course i was in good company...
parents... sure... if it was simply my mother i,
i would say: sure as **** is creepy...
but the triangle was there... the food was great...
we talked about... how so few cultures might
ever appreciate a tripe stew...
the guts are from calves, the meat that's added
is from the older stock...

i wasn't going out... i know what an absolutely
disappointment going out is...
the next time i'll be going out is when i get
my S.I.A. badge as i follow in the footsteps of
a school friend of mine... Kieran... Kieran O'Mahoney...
i don't mind... chemistry degree in the bag...
nepotism in the air: my local pharmacy was once
oh so good... before the employees were
****** off by a father & daughter combo...
dad... in a professional environment?!
anyway... i can do this work...
    after all... it's on a PAYE basis & not on a self-employed
basis, which means... oh, the last time i was
employed i was self-employed...
doing your own tax returns can be a bit of a *****...
now the company will deduce the taxes themselves,
which implies: they'll do the tax returns for me also...

i was never going to be a surgeon,
i might have been a butcher,
i was never going to be a lawyer / politician:
i might have been a philosopher,
i was never going to be a professional footballer,
i am most certainly an avid cyclist,
the list is endless...
i tried to be a musician... i'm no maestro akin
to Ed Sheeran... i played the guitar...
once i managed to find a bass player...
we recorded a tape...
once i met a drummer... jammed with him...
but nothing really clicked... so i gave it up...
the guitar playing... plus... my heart broke
when my "supposed" future father-in-law
****** with Cindy... a brand new
Martin & Co. LXK2... i just got it on debit...
if i broke her heart because i was having one of
those... wild... psychotic trips from London
to Edinburgh & back again...
o.k., that really ****** me up...
i played the poker game of DUMB ******
when he told me the guitar... oopsy... "simply"
cracked... **** him, **** her...
i still haven't had paid for the ******* guitar...
yet now i had to cough up debit installments for
a broken guitar...
                              sign me some *******
kumbaya... some auld lang syne... on this night...
of all nights... sure... let me just get you the bill...
there's no forgiveness in this world
as long as memory is attached to many
& man wants to preserve himself without
turning into an Alzheimer's pickle...

for all the talent of ol' Ed... but at least i'm not
a ginger... i don't think i could handle that
sort of a masterclass in how
the geniuses distribute gifts...
after all, there are: angels, there are demons...
but there are also geniuses...
a shady category of beings...
let's pretend they sort of like...
a flimsy take on children...
ingenious little *******...
evil not by evil's intent...
evil by the intent of innocence...

oh, no, not out of spite... some things just remain:
as FACTS... if something happened...
forgiveness implies what?

   MEMORIA NEGATIO?!
funny how the order of words changed... although
the ****** tongue is very much as the French
when it comes to the order of wording...
from memory negated...
  the modern counter would be...
   the negation of memory... but that's a really trivial
point, don't you think?

i too have seen a stroke of lightning:
but heard no thunder...
imagine the eeriness of seeing a strike of lightning
but not hearing the thunder!

it's going to be a good year... i've already managed
to unearth new music i once thought would
be impossible... here's my shortlist:

Flor Concreta - Possessao (2021) from the Netherlands...
Euroshima - Gala (1987)
Flue - one & a half (1981) - post punk, dark wave,
sad lovers & giants - lost in a moment,
reds - reds (1989) from Poland
Twin Tribes - Fantasmas
Exq's - Ris'x (1982) - from Belgium...
the Klinik came from Belgium,
great place to start... the more eclectic tastes
bulging from listen to too much the cure or depeche
mode or joy division...
or... 65daysofstatic...
Torn Memory - Untitled...
Always the Sun - Always the Sun EP...
Brandenburg - Part two (2011)
every new dead ghost - a new world (1990)

oh man, the list had become endless...
if the music shop survived...
i'd be a ******* wizard in it!
believe me, i don't mind shepherding people
into packed stadium expecting to watch a football
match... i once did a teaser...
me, alone, in the park...
drinking a beer... watching a Sunday League match...
headphones in... this one woman was screetching
at this older woman... lip-reading
i deciphered: YOU HAVE NOTHING TO TALK
TO HIM ABOUT... **** could have turned ugly...
minding my own business has, become,
problematic?!

the problem with women who have tamed a man
& the untamed man & the women who "think"
they can tame every, single, man!
*******... i'm having a beer... watching a football match!
these days... i much prefer watch the crowd...

loser, living with his parents...
well.. i'm not giving any money to a Pakistani landlord,
am i? &, last time i checked...
oh ****! i guess i own the house i'm living in!
i'll be playing this service role for some time...
i'll be playing servant to my parents...
clean the house, cook the food...
when the neighbour put up a new fence...
cleared the bushes...
who was the person who dug up the *******
roots, added extra cement to the fence?
me! moi! mich!                            ja!

the best alternative is living with my peers in *******
gaming squalor...
i live with these grandchildren-less adults:
who don't want grandchildren to begin with...
well... how, best, to encapsulate the "situation"...
a pedicure / manicure professional comes
round the house once... oh... a month...
she brings her babe along, sometimes she doesn't...
not even a year old...
i ask... "dearest" mother...
if she coming round, is she bringing the "toy"?!

like i said... i might have been a good father,
then again, not so good...
a baby would be a toy...
a linguistic experiment...
a bit like... what Frederick II tried to envision...
raising new born babes in a nunnery
without a single word being said:
trying to find out what language was
uttered first... obviously the experiment
ended with: mute was "said" first...

inherently? really?
dogs inherently bark...
cats inherently meow?
rather than... ****'s sake... bonsai tigers that they
are... not growl?!
so if dogs inherently bark...
why don't they inherently howl like
wolves?!

yeah, most of the nights: the FREAKS were not
appealed to, put differently
even to me, the DJ wasn't appealing to me...

ha... GAMING... the "point of question"
when i put down my "gloves" my itchy thumbs
given then the PS1...
these days, i love the internet evolution
of gaming,
no, i haven't "gamed" / "passively narrated"
myself into make-shift allowances
of late...
my best comparison... Madame Bovary vs.
Final Fantasy VII...
that's it, the end, *******...

either read Madame Bovary,
play Final Fantasy VII on PS1... or...
this is the best part...
night-cycle...
listening to halcyon+on+on...
who? ******* orbital...
like i'm john peel and supposed to know...

aber, mein gott! what advancements!
in gaming! exactly! in gaming!
internet gaming dynamic has...
wow!
           i missed the best part of silent hill...
oh... **** me... i remember tenchu vol. 1
and metal gear solid vol. 2...
boys remember those games like any
idiot associates chess...
to something...

i hate living with my parents...
i'm their *******, slave...
but i'm also not paying rent,
so it's a Chinese hitch-e-hi... ******* "surprise":
just waiting... for the irch kids to get
their face-lifts... wait a minute...
wait... perhaps like a tsunmi:
they'll arrive... unsuspected...
quasi-surprise...
whatever... they're there... ignorant
right sort of bollocking... humour me dear
he! heeee! long smile: remember that:
that long schmile! heeee! lovely E...
it's a ******* smile! o.k.?!
you're pandering you ****! ergo?!
pander!
you want your skull to be part
of the great wall of XINA?! go ahead
you ******* numbskull... talll... massive...
ergo bully? the Chinese emperors were like
the Egyptian Pharoahs...
******* karakans... midgits...
sort of people... people of power... sure...
but sort of... underwhelmed...
oh look! "'hing pops up in deutsche!"
hing, wong, hang, 'ing...
these days, what does it matter?!
zwergemensch!
   lilly-put... i don't need not German for
this... the little people!
the ******* bash-abouts...
thanks, my grandfather's death...
was... so so... you know sort of.. choke
the ******* dragon and the billionth of your kind
sort of happy! for me!

****, you! eat ****... die a diabolical death!
******* squinty eyed no-mother-*****!
squid eating ***** of a fake tan...
no... Arab camel jockey ******* no goody-goody...
too gooey-gooey?!
WAW what ******* RAW?!
oh but i'm ready...
give me the opportunity and i will be...
the best...
schutz-staffel-mann... the world... has ever seen...
i'll even wave "them" a bye bye...
when they enter the chom... chim... chum... cham...
chem... hmm...
zee! ah! ha ha! zee schornstein!
- and there i was thinking...
why is my surname so funny...
******-Stalin / -esaue...
people add... are you alert?!
i always forget... no... it's German...
Elert is missing E-S-C-H-L-E-R-T...
it's... Eślert... oh... right... you're ING-LEASH...
sort of backwards... the Welsh might...
not your kind... i was never for interracial
breeding of people... dilutes the blood...
most certainly disorientates the ingestion
of language... sorry, what?!

to reiterate: i'm no gamer, i'd rather read a book
thana play a narrtive-charged game...
i'm more into the evolution of the game per se,
something with the alias of chess...
the internet interaction of group-"think"...
i like teaming-up with people...
a clarity of objectives... beacons...

capturing them...
you know how that helps? working in a real
life environment...
via STATS...
WAR ROBOTS was great... prior to...
the Kazakhs, the Russians, the Chinese buying into
the game...
i don't gamble, you think i might invest
money into a game?! huh?! huh?!
yeah, like maybe next year...
WAR ROBOTS was great, before the pay-up
glitches started...
MECH ARENA... now we're talking...

wins / battle ratio...
272 / 508... so that's... 53%... decent...
mech catalogue...
there's always a method to the madness...
killshot - to capture the beacons...
& wreck havoc...
panther - to ****** out the competition...
paragon - armed with the seeker
missile javelins...
close combat, though...
guardian + pulse canon 9
ares + plasma canon 6...

                            i'm not a gamer...
i'm just relearning partnering-up... team work...
sorry, if it might come across as too crude...
TWIST THE KNIFE -
****** DEATH.. hello! sunshine!

yeah... i still live with my parents...
but... they have paid off their mortgage...
i sort of helped them in that...
am i cunting myself
to some Pakistani landlord?!
high-priest of Rotherham?!
buzz word for 2022... NO!