We’re in six/eight and if this keeps on going
we’ll soon be rocking in three-quarter time—
thank God the blinds are down … we’re slowing …
relief! The postillion’s horn is blowing,
the horses are straining for the climb.
My score is in my lap. A field of grain
would poison thought, a tree corrupt a metre—
if something’s good, then serve it up again,
save paper, let the future take the strain—
manuscripts are neat, but minds are neater.
Music has bridges, proper network roads,
waterways which don’t need locks and levels—
it bears its own anticipatory loads,
The Natural Order hands it down its codes—
saints appear—a bar beyond, they’re devils.
God rested on the seventh day—why rest?
I’m like a fish inventing where it lives.
Life outside’s a sort of palimpsest
of good and evil nurtured at the breast—
needy, you become the need that gives.
And so I keep the blinds drawn, lock away
the milk and honey of a proffered Canaan
to travel to the concertland of play,
and in the coach, by halflight, night or day,
create the only world I can be sane in.