I Become Set To Music

As a Christmas present, Jonty gave me the gift of possibilities. He offered to make one of my poems into song. This is one of those loaves and fishes presents - something more than the sum of its parts: a gift of multiplication.

The starting sum in this particular equation was gluttony - a collecting up of all the candidate poems. They became a group in themselves: at least a sextet of some of my favourites. I had to reduce them down, so subtracted the narratives, the wistful, the greedily over-familiar - I watched out for something playful.

iniquity leapt up saying "Pick me! Pick me!" This cheeky poem drew envy from the others, with its consciously written psychological ambiguity and dark streak. It came to me after listening to Handel's Messiah. "All we like sheep have gone astray. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" sing the chorus early on in this oratorio. Somehow, Handel and the choir make this straying and sinning sound like a lot of fun. Try lazing around and then dancing to the Messiah - that is what I was doing the evening that iniquity came to me. You will not disappoint yourself.

Having been published in Magma, I have confidence in iniquity. I wanted to give my son material worthy of his attention. He was open to the suggestion, took iniquity  away, thought about it and showed it to his composition tutor. She squared up to the poem, calling it (Jonty reported back), "A work of genius!"  I watched iniquity puff itself up easily into the shape of pride.

Jonty took iniquity and months later gave it back to me having multiplied it by Schoenberg, by the dialogue between mezzo soprano and piano, by youthfulness and by his joyful creativity.  He has added layers of meaning and interpretation to this poem which does not immediately lend itself to a musical setting. Listening to it, I had the feeling, both rare and visceral, that he had seen straight through me, given me so much more than I could ever have imagined or asked.

Here's the link to the song on Bandcamp -

https://jontylefroywatt.bandcamp.com/track/iniquity-2019

iniquity …

I like the word

how it feels

tongue flattened to roof for the in

release for the second short i

cheeks and lips drawn for qui

teeth bared for the ty

it’s a total mouth experience

say it

in-i-qui-ty

four syllables of tense   relax   pout   spit

say it looking in the mirror

come on to yourself

relish the way you look like this

limbering up     for what? 

wine    women     sin

iniquity

it puts everything at your disposal

a life full of bite and sound

of going into yourself

trying out all love’s compulsions

say it

play it out

stray

you lucky devil

I Work In The Cold

It's unseasonably cold and wet. You don't need me to tell you that, unless you live somewhere else. The rain came down and the floods went up today, and I got my feet and trousers wet on the way from the station because firstly I left my umbrella at the side of a marquee on Saturday, and because secondly the water was coming up from the pavement as well as down from the skies.

The renovations happening in my part of the building at work seem to necessitate the door to the outside being left open. I suppose this is for convenience. Also, the heating isn't on, which is good because it's June, and not good because it's nothing like an averagely warm June, and someone's leaving the door wedged open.

I sat down at my desk, damp. I got on with the sedentary nature of administration, marking, answering enquiries. A slow day, a misplaced day which should have been spent on a trip to the International Slavery Museum on the waterfront in Liverpool according to another plan which I'm glad, in the end, didn't come off.  There's a best-not-experienced quality of cold on the dockside in Liverpool when the wind whips off the Mersey and the rain comes along with it.

You can't make an omelette without cracking eggs. They can't renovate a building without leaving the door open, ripping up floors, making dust and pulling down the ceiling. I can't always stop the cold from creeping in, taking hold of my hands.

But I can go home, run an early bath, get into my pyjamas and heat a bowl of soup, as if it were already November.