From Her Vertical Smile

I

Arms uplifted on the podium,

the left hand dangling tyrannical;

aetat fünfzig;

the stance flat footed;

the face a fragile axe,

hard and acid, rapt.

Everything a man can do,

and more, is done,

the sparse hair thrown back,

the white cuffs flaring,

the ivory baton flourished

and driven deep.

He sports a little paunch

but this, in its boxy waistcoat,

merely emphasizes the force of will

we find everywhere

in his strange work:

the readiness to embrace risk,

tedium, the ignoble,

to try anything ten times

if so the excessive matter can be settled.

(We have waltzed a while with Disaster,

coat tails twirling along the precipice,

and She is charmed senseless,

Her harmonies collapse

at a touch.) Only a double drum

is beating: two hearts coupled.

There is an overpowering tinkle;

a pregnant hush.

Masterful yet sensitive

his baton explores

her core of peace,

every rhythm drained

into nothing, the nothingness

adjusting toward

a new readiness.

From his captive hearers

(though we can scarcely

contain ourselves)

not a cough,

not a shuffle,

his stance pivotal

above the excited young

clustered around him

in all our promise,

focused with shining faces

on the place of measurement itself,

pointing, like children.

Not a stir,

not a breath,

there at the heart of old Vienna.

THOMAS KINSELLA

Das Lied von der Erde

Roses have fallen, the flesh has lost its tune,

the sound of flutes silvers a chilling moon;

the glint of wine has soured upon the tongue;

riderless now the horsing seasons come;

gone are the firm of limb whose laughter kissed

the morning air with hope, the longing dusk

with traced desires. Now, as the scent of musk

fingers old graveyards, moulders thought from books,

and breathes its doubt on well-remembered looks,

Ewig … the music sighs, and brings us near

the silence those it folds on never hear.

MAURICE LINDSAY

Kindertotenlieder

There can be no songs for dead children

Near the crazy circle of explosions,

The splintering tangent of the ricochet,

No songs for the children who have become

My unrestricted tenants, fingerprints

Everywhere, teethmarks on this and that.

MICHAEL LONGLEY