Conversazione of Musical Instruments |
Overture IN the nebular effects of cigarette smoke, The eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open, The iris drugged by the wine and the women, White arms, mouths of carmine, ankles so slender You might fear that they would snap candy-wise. In the nebular effects of cigarette smoke, Through the various hemispheres the eye turns, One of us is breathing out rhythms For the gratification of an audience. Animated in the hum of conversation, We achieve miracles. When the veneer is shed and the heart lain bare We turn men’s thoughts to Heaven or to Hell— Cathedral Altar or the Brothel couch. Though it be in the nebular effects of cigarette smoke And the eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open, The ear-drums beat electric-nimble And the brain is their poor prone prisoner, When we breathe out our rhythms.
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String Instruments A phosphorescent butterfly I creep into the hair Of those who are aware That I divinely flutter by. Or I’m a vinous liquor spirting bright Shivers of splintered glass into the night, Or shimmering I skate Where lovers celebrate The hour their captive passions, cooped with bars, Were freed, uncrumpled shirts beneath the stars— (Pale, weary breaths of paille-de-riz The corsage of Semiramis). My notes are aromatic traceries Wherewith I swing my perfume through the trees Fiercely exotic; fading on the breeze Until my respiration fails And what was ambergris Melts now to liquorice. I stagger on the air With all my plumage bare, A galleon bereft of sails. Or I can be as vulgar as a music-hall in Paraguay, And I can jig and jig away To cynically flirt With sentimental dirt; Veneered as candied peel, Or gilded fruit, I reel Into a singing cabaret. For there in my proximity They listen to my creed, (And so I do not need To preach my own sublimity). I imitate the flavour of vanille To give distinguished patronage the chill, And I can give neuralgia, Hysterics and nostalgia To counterfeit the gardens of Seville. I can creak as any sparrow Which pricks the curve Of every nerve With a throstle sharp and narrow. And I can be as raucous as A golden-spotted jaguar And I can be as glaucous as The trees in Nicaragua. Drink in my subtle melodies, My chartreuse-tinted threnodies.... Violoncello (known more popularly as
the ’cello to rhyme with mellow-yellow) I am the waxen fruit of instruments; I drone till beads of perspiration break Upon the foreheads of my audience. I swell tumultuous; my dullard sounds Ebb platitudes in doleful indigo. Voluptuously blatant in my greed, I am the woman garbed in heliotrope, Whose bustle panics peacocks in the park. Some take my mellow notes for rosaries— So holy, steadfast, pure they seem to be. (Like dear Prince Albert on a promenade, Inspired apostle of the simple life, With all his homely virtues on parade). And I am music’s Edinburgh rock, A laxative caressing to the ear, A sanitary purge unto the sense; A sentimental background in the life Of modest daughter and domestic wife. Chorus of Guitar and Mandoline I snatch the silence whimpering (Nocturnal perfumes make me sneeze) My nostrils twitch; I snap the air, I twang along the cardboard breeze. I jump and rattle, Reel and prattle In Andalusian orangeries. Now an elegant fandango, Now a lithe and lissome tango, Then I swoop like a flamingo On a juicy-breasted mango Hidden in the noisy leafage of the Guadalquivir. Drips of dear ineffectual water, April showers of pallid arsenic evaporating to unsubstantial air, I once melted the heart of Cuchulain and his warriors And Tom Moore grew quite sentimental about me in Tara’s halls, Where my ripply waves of watery sounds Turned to thin strips of paper on the breeze. Now I can faint but to transparent moons And the intensified weariness of stars. I can whimper the same faded melodies With their aroma of blurred cinnamon. But the warriors have tired of listening, For the Trocaderos call them with their Coon jazz-bands. I strut with wicked tiger-eyes Beware! Beware! Bubbles of rubied flame arise When villain gloats or hero dies ’Tis I am there. When the last-breathed cry is uttered, When the ghastly raven’s fluttered. And the scoundrel’s curse is muttered Beware! beware! ’Tis I am there. I am a draught from an envenomed winepress Low-humming ere the thud and thunderstorm— And then at nightfall I decline, subsiding. My flames will flicker out into the starlight And I shall scoop into the dome of darkness A filmy vault of crystallising silver.
Little bells on golden strings, Little, glittering, glassy things, Frail humming-birds with freckled wings.... Marionettes And Pirouettes And steel-arpeggio flutterings. With my music-box precision I can conjure up a vision Of nurseries and unicorns And silver cows with crumpled horns, Of daisies and forget-me-nots, Of cherry-jam and coffee-pots, Perpetual kaleidoscopes Of jumping-jacks and skipping ropes. I chatter for eternity, So help yourself to China tea! Kiddy, Oh ma honey Are you giddy for a song Or a run for your money? For I’ll buzz you one along For I’m tin and string and wire And wire and string and tin, I can tang a tune for hire; I can thump until I’m thin. Gee! I’ll strut a juicy fox-trot (Lilly-oh ma loo, ma loo) Or a Coon’s banana cakewalk (Come and kiss me, ducky, do!). (A vision of red-mouths, outthrust bellies in a leafy
crÉme-de-menthe tropic.)
Wind Instruments I am the brawny man without a brain Who yawns a heartfelt music mournfully. The military orchestra reveres My manliness. Each Sunday afternoon I lead in the Gaillard-ApothÉose. For I exude no poignant, fevered sounds And yet I have my share of sentiment. The soldier boy who perished by his will For King and Country’s call, I represent. I stand for honour, bravery’s my spouse And that I swear’s no enviable rÔle— My sounds lack pepper often when they seem To fall in relaxation on a couch, But hold my player culpable for that; Confiteor! I know I have defects; But do not grudge me my solidity! The descendant of that reed The shepherds played in Attica, Drowsing to the indolence of their brown bodies, I peck the eyes of silence With the vulture-beak of my primeval harshness. Yet the high keys of an organ Are rivals lean to mine, Sonorous in primitive ingenuities Which blister the most Wagnerian cynics [1]With their clear-dropping, honey-comb dripping notes. For you expect in flurry cohorts The bees to swarm out “zoo-oom, zoo-oom” Scything the phosphorescence on this air Of agate-carved medallions, Where all are statuettes from Tanagra. The turbid air is buttered over now With streaks of marbled stillness, as the prow Of some deserted galleon; then I, A pennon floating down the jagged sky, Dissolve the butter with a single blast Until the quiet falls, a broken mast Like giant hail that thrashes on the leads I paralyse and rip the air to shreds, I flash my sparks of forest-powdering noise; The formidable fanfares that I poise, Ominous heralds of catastrophe, As grapes of cloudy vintage on a sea Purple and swollen, lecherous for thirst, That wait until the thunderclaps, then burst. When calm is ravished and I make retreat Still throbs the air, still fevered temples beat....
I trumpet orange clear and strong And then I falter in my song, My breath falls stertorous when I climb, My notes are sudden-shivery in the ankles. Fierce red I turn, but like a blurry prism Half-red, half-yellow, sinewy I grip With potent gums onto the banister Of music. My notes call often desperate retreats From battle-fields corpse-rich, still dear, still strong, More passionate than grief, fevered than hatred, Still dear, still strong, I wail a-down the breeze— Which raises a poignant odour of putrefaction. Though sharp I ne- ver harp Upon My clear- ness like A fear- ful bird. My fresh And pier- cing mesh Of notes Entrap The sense And lap The mind. I re- present The light Of moon In night Of June. A sea Of scent From wood- land vine I could Define With clear- ness like A fear- ful bird. Percussion Arrows glitter through the air, Wherewith, we, plumed of dappled rainbows, Ravage quiet. Shrilly shimmering, we whizz, hiss, Thrash our eruptions volcanic, Clattering into scythes Which pierce the lead-of-air. Our arrogant syncopations become Bright sunflowers of steel waxing gigantical, Then, more animated, clash; there.... Have two suns collided? And tell me has the curtain been pulled down?
Men go to be murdered like innocent lambs At the slaughter-house, gentle as beeves or as hams. Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. They are singing away, they are singing away, They are bidding farewell to the realms of the day ... Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. And look at all the faces at the windows peering out! The bonny lads are going to war, “Hurray! hurray!” they shout, “The bonny boys, Hurray! Hurray! They look so happy and so gay!” Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. Some are going to their funerals: I roll with bloodshot eyes. Some are going to a land of death and never to arise. Except to sing a “Glory, Hallelujah” to the King And dance around his throne of gold and warble in a ring— Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. The fields of France will run in little rivers of their blood And a few, all gashed and gory, will be sprawling in the mud. Some are going to a land of death, and never to arise, Some are going to their funerals; I roll with bloodshot eyes— Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. And their lithe and youthful bodies will be broken mannequins That the Doctors will be cutting, and the bandages and pins Will take the place of cockroaches and rats with pinkish eyes And the lice that suck the blood of every soldier ere he dies. Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum. And I persuade the sceptic that he’s fighting for a cause “To fight for Right with all his Might” with fang and tooth and claws, When I’m rolling he forgets the facts and thinks of youth and glory And forgets that if he does return he’ll tell another story. Boum, boum—boum, boum, boum! (bis).
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