Overture

IN the nebular effects of cigarette smoke,

The eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open,

The iris drugged by the wine and the women,

White arms, mouths of carmine, ankles so slender

You might fear that they would snap candy-wise.

In the nebular effects of cigarette smoke,

Through the various hemispheres the eye turns,

One of us is breathing out rhythms

For the gratification of an audience.

Animated in the hum of conversation,

We achieve miracles.

When the veneer is shed and the heart lain bare

We turn men’s thoughts to Heaven or to Hell—

Cathedral Altar or the Brothel couch.

Though it be in the nebular effects of cigarette smoke

And the eyes may be closed heavy or drowsing open,

The ear-drums beat electric-nimble

And the brain is their poor prone prisoner,

When we breathe out our rhythms.

I
String Instruments

Violin (virtuosity)

A phosphorescent butterfly

I creep into the hair

Of those who are aware

That I divinely flutter by.

Or I’m a vinous liquor spirting bright

Shivers of splintered glass into the night,

Or shimmering I skate

Where lovers celebrate

The hour their captive passions, cooped with bars,

Were freed, uncrumpled shirts beneath the stars—

(Pale, weary breaths of paille-de-riz

The corsage of Semiramis).

My notes are aromatic traceries

Wherewith I swing my perfume through the trees

Fiercely exotic; fading on the breeze

Until my respiration fails

And what was ambergris

Melts now to liquorice.

I stagger on the air

With all my plumage bare,

A galleon bereft of sails.

Or I can be as vulgar as a music-hall in Paraguay,

And I can jig and jig away

To cynically flirt

With sentimental dirt;

Veneered as candied peel,

Or gilded fruit, I reel

Into a singing cabaret.

For there in my proximity

They listen to my creed,

(And so I do not need

To preach my own sublimity).

I imitate the flavour of vanille

To give distinguished patronage the chill,

And I can give neuralgia,

Hysterics and nostalgia

To counterfeit the gardens of Seville.

I can creak as any sparrow

Which pricks the curve

Of every nerve

With a throstle sharp and narrow.

And I can be as raucous as

A golden-spotted jaguar

And I can be as glaucous as

The trees in Nicaragua.

Drink in my subtle melodies,

My chartreuse-tinted threnodies....

Violoncello (known more popularly as
the ’cello to rhyme with mellow-yellow)

I am the waxen fruit of instruments;

I drone till beads of perspiration break

Upon the foreheads of my audience.

I swell tumultuous; my dullard sounds

Ebb platitudes in doleful indigo.

Voluptuously blatant in my greed,

I am the woman garbed in heliotrope,

Whose bustle panics peacocks in the park.

Some take my mellow notes for rosaries—

So holy, steadfast, pure they seem to be.

(Like dear Prince Albert on a promenade,

Inspired apostle of the simple life,

With all his homely virtues on parade).

And I am music’s Edinburgh rock,

A laxative caressing to the ear,

A sanitary purge unto the sense;

A sentimental background in the life

Of modest daughter and domestic wife.

Chorus of Guitar and Mandoline

I snatch the silence whimpering

(Nocturnal perfumes make me sneeze)

My nostrils twitch; I snap the air,

I twang along the cardboard breeze.

I jump and rattle,

Reel and prattle

In Andalusian orangeries.

Now an elegant fandango,

Now a lithe and lissome tango,

Then I swoop like a flamingo

On a juicy-breasted mango

Hidden in the noisy leafage of the Guadalquivir.

Harp

Drips of dear ineffectual water,

April showers of pallid arsenic evaporating to unsubstantial air,

I once melted the heart of Cuchulain and his warriors

And Tom Moore grew quite sentimental about me in Tara’s halls,

Where my ripply waves of watery sounds

Turned to thin strips of paper on the breeze.

Now I can faint but to transparent moons

And the intensified weariness of stars.

I can whimper the same faded melodies

With their aroma of blurred cinnamon.

But the warriors have tired of listening,

For the Trocaderos call them with their Coon jazz-bands.

Double-Bass

I strut with wicked tiger-eyes

Beware! Beware!

Bubbles of rubied flame arise

When villain gloats or hero dies

’Tis I am there.

When the last-breathed cry is uttered,

When the ghastly raven’s fluttered.

And the scoundrel’s curse is muttered

Beware! beware!

’Tis I am there.

I am a draught from an envenomed winepress

Low-humming ere the thud and thunderstorm—

And then at nightfall I decline, subsiding.

My flames will flicker out into the starlight

And I shall scoop into the dome of darkness

A filmy vault of crystallising silver.

Xylophone

Little bells on golden strings,

Little, glittering, glassy things,

Frail humming-birds with freckled wings....

Marionettes

And Pirouettes

And steel-arpeggio flutterings.

With my music-box precision

I can conjure up a vision

Of nurseries and unicorns

And silver cows with crumpled horns,

Of daisies and forget-me-nots,

Of cherry-jam and coffee-pots,

Perpetual kaleidoscopes

Of jumping-jacks and skipping ropes.

I chatter for eternity,

So help yourself to China tea!

Banjo

Kiddy, Oh ma honey

Are you giddy for a song

Or a run for your money?

For I’ll buzz you one along

For I’m tin and string and wire

And wire and string and tin,

I can tang a tune for hire;

I can thump until I’m thin.

Gee! I’ll strut a juicy fox-trot

(Lilly-oh ma loo, ma loo)

Or a Coon’s banana cakewalk

(Come and kiss me, ducky, do!).

(A vision of red-mouths, outthrust bellies in a leafy
créme-de-menthe tropic.)