Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Remember the time when Y was a little-known composer? Coming between the celebrated X and the no less renowned Z, he knew from early on that things were not going to be easy. And it wasn't just the layout of the alphabet that ensured he had a hard time of it - deciding to make the double-bass his instrument-of-choice was scarcely helpful. With tragic defiance he would address his shaving-mirror every morning: If Dragonetti can become a household name, then so can I.

     That, of course, was back in the days when we all struggled to keep up to speed with the best deals in Loyalty Cards, Special Offers, our pin numbers and passwords. 24,000 people died of malnutrition and 140 species perished daily while, at the rate of several a week, the lucky ones among us became millionaires. Y looked on at this clamour of activity and whenever he felt particularly left out, consoled himself with the deep rich tones of his double-bass.

     One day, he went for walk and a good long think about his future. He had just rounded the corner into Princes St. and was wondering whether a concession to popular taste, in the form of a duo for double-bass and Alpine horn, might not provide the much-needed turning-point in his fortunes, when he heard his name being called.

     He turned, but could see no-one. Only the usual: the kilted doorman outside the Balmoral Hotel, the travellers hurrying towards the steps down to Waverley Station, an orderly bus queue. Had he been dreaming?

     As casually as he could, he glanced round in a complete circle - but beyond the surge of frantic go-getters, the instant millionaires and beggars, there was nothing. Just then a maroon Lothian Transport bus pulled up. The assembled queue filed neatly on, flourishing the strips of their Saver Day-Tickets like carnival streamers. Clearly his confusion had gone unnoticed. He continued walking.

     The sun was shining, the day was just right for some positive planning. Perhaps if he introduced a part for cowbells? A pleasing effect which, if sensitively scored, might give the piece that extra something - without necessarily compromising his artistic integrity. After all, didn’t Mahler’s Seventh Symphony - ?

     Again he was sure he’d heard his name being called.

     He turned for a second time... and that was the precise moment when the world all of us had known and cherished - a world arranged for our comfort and security thanks to corporate image-branding, 24-hour News Updates, limitless credit facilities and the rest - changed forever.

     Each of us has our own story to tell - of where we were when we heard what had happened, who we were with. TV screens replayed the same terrible image over and over again. We switched them off - and still we saw it, burned into our minds. Where it has stayed burned. It was as if the clock whose ceaseless booming filled the heavens around us and whose tick had become so familiar that we no longer heard it - had actually paused. Bringing all Creation to a standstill. Remember? And then it resumed, in an awkward and unfamiliar rhythm. The hands re-set, it started up again - and nothing’s felt quite the same since.

     No need to look very hard to see how things have changed: the sky’s been replaced by a Tiepolo-style ceiling of angels gazing down at us, there are chandeliers for sunlight, papier-maché columns support the weightless architecture of our cities and towns. In ever-greasier evening-dress we drift from one concert straight to the next, clutching our programmes and accompanied by the din of perpetual masterpieces. The streets are clogged with chamber ensembles, the undergrounds with massed choirs. The arms of the violinists ache, the lips of the brass sections are chapped and bleeding, conductors rehearse in their sleep.

     Composer Y, at last, is in constant demand. New work! New work! scream the concert promoters and agents. He and his double-bass rush here, there and everywhere playing to ceaseless applause. They perform, take their bow and leave. No time to rest, he straps himself to his double-bass, and rushes off. His back bent nearly double, his knees buckling till they almost scrape the pavement, he’s determined to keep to schedule. On foot, bus, taxi, limo, train, ferry, plane and parachute - the next hall, the next concert, the next audience. His choice is clear: novelty, or permanent oblivion.

     Sometimes, exhausted to the very bone, he pauses to gaze up into the stillness of painted clouds and the illusory depth of sky now arching above us all: he draws strength from the winged cherubim and seraphim, he stares into the perfectly calculated perspective. There is a vanishing-point - and at these moments he can feel it pulling him irresistibly towards nothingness. When the moment passes, he hurries on. The rest of us, as if fearing to sense even gravity itself as a confirmation of our new loneliness and dread, cheer him louder and louder, clapping and calling for more. Cries of ‘Encore!’ tear our throats raw.