Rising before us, the pregnant stage point stands,
every eye and ear awaiting the conductor’s leap
because when that hand swings, the sun will spring to life
and I and my mate, we are swallowed in the sunrise,
carried at the centre of a world awash with morning music,
drowning in Dvorak, Debussy, delight.
The breeze builds,
the wind roars and something explodes.
Violence and love go to war
with untoned arms in tune,
slashing and sawing.
I am attacked.
Ranks of architects, accountants and teachers,
march with dusk-drilled grace,
I see as headless bodies from where I lay slain near the grand legs.
Demisemiquavers quake like a bow
at the sound of a rattling quiver half-full
as the brown bass rolls beneath the army’s feet.
They strike, turn, execute
the music and me,
and I am strung up, unskinned
by, after all the fear,
a slow elbow.
Joe Spring writes 