** The Concept of the Open Throat (From a voice instruction CD by David Jones)
** Madama Butterfly Act I (Puccini)
** In the Fen Country (Vaughan Williams)
** When I Have Sung My Songs (Ernest Charles)
** I Cried All the Way to The Altar (Patsy Cline)
Here is the first poem:
Chameleon
I cried all the way to the altar
in the fen country of never
then like Madam Butterfly Act I
I waited in the sap green hills
between the paper walls
with irrational hope
for my life to start
I had delusions but
Pinkerton had a plan, a social agenda.
As he sails away, I cannot find the right knife
the right note, I sing and sing until
all the songs have gone out
like last ship, the last love
the last dim star.
As the finale crashes to its end
I think about the coda: I think
when I have sung my songs
I should burn this music.*
After the fire, I lift my brushes,
paint still LIFE, or land SCAPE
and never wait for masagynists
or condescending conductors, and
the concept of the open throat
suddenly demands blackberries or peaches,
or a sigh of contentment at the end of the day.
And the good light shines in any color I want
every morning for the rest of my life
-- Mar Walker
*this is a metaphorical statement. I would not burn a score
2 comments:
With the exception of "Madame Butterfly Act I" which is destined to be a cumbersome inclusion no matter what you do, you song titles fit so beautifully into the flow of the poem, that they were hard to spot even though you had listed them.
Well done!
Thanks very. Oddly, that most awkward is the most important. From the paper walls to the last ship, Pinkerton and the knife, without that one title, invoking the whole Madame Butterfly opera plot, it would have been a very different poem.
I thought "The Concept of the Open Throat" was the most awkward to work in there. It's a chapter title in an audiobook on singing.
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