A Flash of Stoic Insight
Cycling to my GP to pick up
a repeat prescription, I go past Marcus
Aurelius Street, surprised I never
noticed it before. A wonder it’s even
there, given that as Roman Consul, and
then Emperor, he surely owned a slave
or two. I meditate on that, and on other
things, including this neuro-chemical
proclivity of mine requiring the prescribed
medicine, and how I am slave to that, sort of.
The world rolls by and I think of horses
and chariots. Armies, trains, and hamster
wheels. I think of Pheidippides running
all that distance, uttering ‘Victory’ and then
his body folding on the steps of Athens and
then perishing. Which somehow reminds me
of Anne Baxter in The Razor’s Edge and
how she was tricked into her final terrible relapse.
Music barges in and now it’s Bill Evans jazzing
up ‘Suicide Is Painless’ with his left hand
and ‘You Must Believe in Spring’ with his right.
Earlier, when I unlocked this old mechanical
steed and set off in the mid-May sunshine,
it didn’t occur to me that this journey,
under my own steam, means I am actually
free and have a spark of the indomitable
inside me – means in fact that no major
hurdle or impediment – not to speak
of plagues and warring tribes – is holding
back my progress. But the idea does hit me now,
as I contemplate the vast, messy landscape
of street signs and poster ads and parked cars
and over-tenured revisionist posts, and as I hear
the thunder of those horrifying Autobahn
crashes way off in the distance.
Out of Nowhere
I’m strolling through the busy
downtown area, Beethoven sonatas
chortling like trees full of evening birds into
my ears, while the colours and gestures
I see everywhere seem incongruous
but somehow, at the same time, in tune
with the piano’s beautiful clinking madness.
And I remember what someone once remarked
to me about these aural monuments: that for her
they brought to mind the music from those old
silent films. No, she wasn’t very well versed
in classical music – but, by golly, how apt!
That was a while ago, before the age of
noise-cancellation headphones. I don’t know
what happened to her. I was in love, of course,
and I might have even said so to her face,
or to the windshield, which was being
pelted with rain, as we sat in her parked car
and she pretended not to hear my sappy
declamation, uttering instead depressing words
about a drab marriage, words that drifted
between us like the smoke from her cigarette
and the Beethoven from the Blaupunkt.
But that was then. Now, what I’m actually
thinking is this: Yes, she was on to something.
First, my pathetic falsity. But more importantly,
the idea of this – all of this – being a silent
movie. It’s true I’ve skewered many a tender
moment with the arrowheads of my desire,
which has made me an outcast of sorts,
a player not really playing but rather peering
into the fray, fidgeting, constantly moving,
gyrating, almost dancing, like a solo Fred Astaire
showing off on the fringes – or, better still,
Buster Keaton nimbly and mischievously dashing
here and there, spilling coffee on his shirt and
jacket, jumping boxcars and tumbling
out of them – all the while that invisible
impassioned keyboardist doing his thing behind
the scenes, blowing life into crowds,
topography, and action – and, like a good
stage prompter, whispering truthful lines
I may have stupidly forgotten.
Impromptu Aria
I’m not going to the opera today.
I could go to the opera, but I’d rather not.
If I’d bought my ticket in advance,
I’d have to go. But it’s a balmy mid-April Sunday,
and the sun is shining, and a Mozart piano concerto
is playing just fine on the stereo, sweetly in fact,
whereas this afternoon Handel’s Caesar
will be presented with a severed head
on a platter and then be forced to take revenge.
Sure, he’ll be falling all over again for
what’s her name – Cleopatra – the sly one
with the makeup around the eyes, the beauty
with the plan, and you can bet there will be
lots of clapping and maybe even some
cheering once the final cadenza is over and
the battle is won and the crown finds its rightful
owner. But four hours (!) of fidgeting in jacket
and tie, and wondering if the person sitting
next to me is as ambivalent as I am about
these rambling, twangy recitatives (you know:
the talking-singing that’s not really either),
and whether she too hemmed and hawed
about coming in the first place and, like me,
stood in front of the mirror faced with two
or three sartorial choices, and whether I should
actually talk to her in the intermission about
all of this, or at least about the story thus far
enacted, the music, the characters, the lonely
head on the platter, the ploys and ruses lurking
in the background. Of course, this being
the opera, there’ll be all that coughing and
throat-clearing peppering through the audience,
as though Caesar’s conviction or what’s her name’s
subtle scheming were put into question.
And let’s not forget the latecomers, looking
so distraught, so flushed, as if they’d just left
their steamy conjugal beds. So, no, I’m not sure
today is the right time, not with the sun streaming
in through the open windows and my plants
soaking up spring’s delights, not to mention
Mozart’s clarity of purpose, the elated gurgling
of the piano, so blithe and brilliant, filling
the space around my head with its own crown
of truth. Hell, I might even break into song
myself, alone here in my sunny room – me,
without what’s her name, but with the words
coming up (or down) from who knows where,
the bloody ether, perhaps the depths of my feet,
or the sea of pictures and vibes swishing and
swashing between my ears and in
and around this blathering heart of mine.
Ode to Another Spring
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony premiered
at the Kärnthnerthor Theater in Vienna on May 7, 1824
with the composer, standing next to conductor Michael Umlauf,
doing his own thing.
It’s true, after a certain point
your body starts the slow steady
decline. And yet you always come
back to the window to stare out
at the jolly birch leaves twirling
like eddies in April’s wind
and showers. And you always play
Beethoven sonatas on the stereo,
marking the defiance and the pure
joy, even as you yourself hardly
put up a fight. The coffee you sip,
to buy time, counters the drowsiness
of the antihistamines and other
immune-misfire meds so that,
yes, it is possible, helpful, crucial
even, to come back to the music
and the yearning – despite aching
bones and the gradual but undeniable
descent towards the earth and ashes
from which you arose. Who knows,
maybe tomorrow you will heed
the tap on the shoulder and throw
on your coat and go humming
through the fields and trees and
climate-resilient, teeming streets,
joining friend and foe alike, and all
the while forget these lines that have
you pegged for the weakened debtor
who merely sleeps and wakens,
day in and day out, dreaming of
the pretty soprano who tapped him
on the shoulder on that glorious day
two hundred years ago, because
he was still flapping his arms
to the music in his head unaware
that the performance was now over –
unaware, that is, until she gently
turned him around so that he could
face the rapture, rising and swelling,
from all of humanity.
Frankfurt am Main
It’s spring in central Europe
but the arid-like climate these past
weeks has been compared
to the Middle East. A Bauer,
in these parts, means farmer,
and the lot of them are clamouring
for rain. I know what they mean.
The scaffolding around the old cathedral,
where the elected German kings stood
with sceptre in one hand and imperial orb
in the other, reminds me of the dinosaur
bones I saw in the natural history
museum. If I were part of the restauration
crew, my parched throat would have
little to say. The wind is relentless,
so, yes, spurning dust and pollen,
I duck into churches and museums.
Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to rejoice
in the springtime sun (like the fans
of their soccer team, champions
of the Europa Cup), but with my bad
grammar and this void in my heart,
where once your smile blossomed
all year round, I have no choice
but to keep a low profile and listen
to this guide explain how Vermeer’s
robed geographer, eyes directed
out the window, compass in hand,
and a map laid out before him,
is probably contemplating distant
seas and lands – although I know
better. And as the group moves on
to the next masterpiece, here I am
already lagging.
