THE COMPOSER’S TOWER

1

the wooden bridge’s direction is the rotten direction of dead fish
rain　　dyed black by a silver lake

stone　　rotted to let roots clutch
loathing’s root that ivy stabs in flesh

spit out the sound of rain　　summer like a mouldy pelt
birdsong plunging into the starving trap of the ear

hearing 　　turned into a breach in the dawn
everything interred in the tower sounds out in music

a madman’s sodden head floats to the surface
makes the sky fall apart again and again　　frenziedly stirs last night

but last night will never again pass by　　you
dim windows all around opening only on one person’s pain

2

the battle is only between sound and silence
you hear the corpse opening the lid and struggling up through the soil

the final day has arrived in the end at a pallid letter
time retarded just enough to forget

declaiming in the novel accents of a blood-red bird
the dead are wakened and lose to death again

you lose　　to a life on a page of the score
like a wrecker　　lectured by the clenched teeth of the dumb

write　　every man-faced grass follows winter’s flow
flesh invisibly returns

flesh　　has elapsed in composition　　gone further still now
as negating light moves from note to note

3

the door bangs shut　　and the inquisitor’s rage changes
a father softly explains himself　　not at all like a father

there’s an ear aged eleven in the tower
glued to the wall by all of its years

overhearing all the time　　how sound dies in sound
like silence　　creates a stone of heaped silence

a child stands on top of the high tower
swallows the evil dark stars stuff in his little hand

the storm stuffs a silent stomach full
this June morning　　pulling you back into the madman’s last night

writing out the final whistle
a tower of ageing skin　　so easily blown away