Wearing headphones
I wander, distracted
Through this temple of mammon
The ubiquitous mall.
Your music surrounds my passage.
You and I hover above the precipice of war:
Europe on the brink
The clash of civilizations
All the isms on fire.
The prayerful suspension
Of this civil war music
Conspires with my consciousness
To interpolate these breathless sounds
As a staunchèd requiem
Torn from the living:
The violin edges higher and higher
Spitting out its warning
The sounds of death no longer muffled.
Here are the contours
Of a boon landscape ravaged by time:
Its beauty and terror
Still clutch and choke
Still exorcise the demon taunts
Of a bitter decade’s lurch to war
And its querulous inevitability.
In this florid shopper's world
The dummies line up with their vacant stares
And gesture towards that long and winding trail.
In the triumph of endless consumption
Shopping bowls a dead ball
At the jingoistic tenor
Of our shrill remembrances
Cranked out as pantomime and purchase
Souveniring conflict’s delight in simple victory.
Now extravagance and commodities
Rule our pampered world
Like a divine order of debilitating affluence
But the dark stench
The subterranean shock of terror
Cannot be perfumed by Arabia
Nor remove the fragility of our sheltered world:
The guns and tanks trawl the seaways
Inspiring insurgency and civil war.
Beyond religious discord
Your music summons the silvery note
Of fragile prayer
Where forgiveness unfolds
Like a vivid rose
Its starkness heralding
Eternal hope, watchful peace
Even when first world bodies
Lay mutilated on our shopping streets.
The drums are barely muffled now
Their echoes sour in the wintry landscape.
Life and death entwined
Your music carries
Both benediction and warning
Of the one constancy:
The humming breath of all human desire - listen.
Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto Opus 15 was written between 1938 and 1939.
http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20103/11103/
Gar Jones: June 2012/June 2017
I wander, distracted
Through this temple of mammon
The ubiquitous mall.
Your music surrounds my passage.
You and I hover above the precipice of war:
Europe on the brink
The clash of civilizations
All the isms on fire.
The prayerful suspension
Of this civil war music
Conspires with my consciousness
To interpolate these breathless sounds
As a staunchèd requiem
Torn from the living:
The violin edges higher and higher
Spitting out its warning
The sounds of death no longer muffled.
Here are the contours
Of a boon landscape ravaged by time:
Its beauty and terror
Still clutch and choke
Still exorcise the demon taunts
Of a bitter decade’s lurch to war
And its querulous inevitability.
In this florid shopper's world
The dummies line up with their vacant stares
And gesture towards that long and winding trail.
In the triumph of endless consumption
Shopping bowls a dead ball
At the jingoistic tenor
Of our shrill remembrances
Cranked out as pantomime and purchase
Souveniring conflict’s delight in simple victory.
Now extravagance and commodities
Rule our pampered world
Like a divine order of debilitating affluence
But the dark stench
The subterranean shock of terror
Cannot be perfumed by Arabia
Nor remove the fragility of our sheltered world:
The guns and tanks trawl the seaways
Inspiring insurgency and civil war.
Beyond religious discord
Your music summons the silvery note
Of fragile prayer
Where forgiveness unfolds
Like a vivid rose
Its starkness heralding
Eternal hope, watchful peace
Even when first world bodies
Lay mutilated on our shopping streets.
The drums are barely muffled now
Their echoes sour in the wintry landscape.
Life and death entwined
Your music carries
Both benediction and warning
Of the one constancy:
The humming breath of all human desire - listen.
Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto Opus 15 was written between 1938 and 1939.
http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20103/11103/
Gar Jones: June 2012/June 2017