Mozart – poems 2 die for

IF CHESS

if chess
were music
it would
be Mozart

the melodies sparkling
and yet fastidious
scarcely can tell
anything of
rebellious Aquarius
in there at all

if chess were
soundtrack

wouldn’t be
punk rock, wouldn’t
be Led Zeppelin

yet
   Mozart seems
prepared to
rock-
hard
            go hard
                  rock

be our favourite snotty-nosed
neo-classical punk

inclined to
    tease the establishment
as far
as he could get
stick
that
       dissenting finger
everywhere, from
tune to theme
(cleverly disguised to
rhyme
    with the times)

see them
for the wooden
major minor pieces
that they are
carved
for the ranks and
files and
to dance the diagonals
(Archbishop black and Archbishop white)

LITTLE TUNE

“a funny little tune
but it yielded some
good things” AMADEUS
(dir. Milos Forman, 1984)

hope there
is something here
you might conceivably
run with

an idea you might reshape,
rephrase most interestingly

for why am I here, bothering
with this
if not to inspire, steer
in right direction

write
as heartfelt tribute that you
might further enhance

as lifelong struggle to
attain what
momentous effort
labours
to perfect

gets swept
away by human genius

MR GLADWELL

MR GLADWELL

Oh Mr Gladwell
I am playing chess
writing poetry

writing poetry
playing chess

playing
poetry

writing chess

my brain has become
a RORSCHACH blot

there
is blood all over
the board

strange body fluids
all over the page

wanted to be a kind of genius
but I’m dissolving into
nothingness

Mozart composing symphonies
still at the breast,

working out
the arias for his operas

from within
his pauper’s grave.