Tony Dash
Moussorgsky’s ‘Pictures At An Exhibition’
(In my rented bungalow)
The Great Gate Of Kiev
I am writing that I thought it said,
at first glance, ‘The Great Gate of Kevin’
because it symbolises the foolishness
of the notion to use this rented box
as a gallery for those Hartmann paintings.
While the music wafts through the open windows,
down the valley and turns northwards,
it takes with it four of the movements
I can no longer grapple with,
while stranded fumbling at The Great Gate…
I am living in The Heart of England
mowing grass and barrowing the waggers,
raking leaves, shifting snow and planting bulbs,
moving in seasonal circles towards silence
and truth, as represented by absolute fatigue.
The ghost of the music goes down to distance
while I go rushing into sleep,
leaving unhatched within this flux
the haunted moments of what might have been,
eighteen-year-long moments, loved too late.
Page(s) 48
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