Wagner

After the sick adventure and insolence

of steep soaring notes, heaven-lit,

the romantic convulsive fall and

fall to nuances of German black.

The suited orchestra inhabit the pit –

like the dead must be hidden.

Cthonic music must come back as if

bidden from the deeps of the earth.

Wagner, is this your dream or Wotan’s?

An organ dismembered, a sexual shout,

scream and burn – climax of a candle-flame

blown out, more a woman's than a man’s.

Genius with the soul of a vulture

your overgrown music is good for heroes,

for cheap Hollywood; yet there's something else,

something taciturn, almost remembered.

Outside the Hall even your statue, moon-blown,

stone-deaf, smells of the urn; and ghosts soaped

in moonlight weep. The streets of Germany

are clean, like the hands of Lady Macbeth.

And does your stern distinguished statue keep

vigil for another Fuhrer's return?

Some statues never awaken,

some never seem to sleep.

DANNIE ABSE

Brunhild

My father laid me in a ring

Of fire, and then like thunder rolled

Away, though I had been more close

To him than in his arms. He told

Me I should never see his face

Now he had voiced me like a song,

Made me a separate thing, no more

His warrior daughter but a woman.

But I do see his face, I see

It all the time. Though I am human

He can still rule. He promised me

That a brave man should break the fire,

A man he would approve of, no

Tentative weakling. He will have

My father's dominant beard and mighty

Shoulders, and instead of love

This obligation to be doughty.

I wait for the entrance of the hero

Dressed up in my father's fashion.

If I were free to love I would

Decide on someone thin and shaven.

But in the ring I lie like wood

Or soil, that cannot yield or even

Be raped except with his permission.