This English boy
So sibling loved
Wrote in French
His young chanson
Then sang his Wagner
Deep below
Matricide and patricide
The pulse of creativity
Electric through his gangling body
His fractured heart on song.
 
Transfixed, transmogrified
By Auden’s weighty banter
And teasing of the secret love
That haunts his every sainted day
This strict English boy
Observed his creative order:
“Blessed Cecilia
Appear in visions to all musicians
- That I may die
A holy man
Broken by this awesome gift
Sick unto my self”.
 
The barbéd wire
Within the blood
Clarified disorder
The fear and pain
Stretched him tight
Beyond the ken
Of ordinary men
And pleasure pain
Invoked his name:
That lamb that must be shamed:
 
O palpitation!
 


 
Gar Jones:  June 2014/ October 2016

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