Anton Bruckner: Motet for Men's Choir

for Crispin Lewis

Sweat prickled the rehearsal-room walls

as the composer raged and spat.

‘Too bloody loud. It's triple p.

And – God help us – you’re flat flat flat!’

(The sixteen choristers sat in silence,

chins in, waiting to be dismissed.

They’d have an hour before the concert,

an hour after – at least they could get pissed.)

‘Those final bars are a whisper, a dying fall.

They should barely reach me in the organ-loft.

Can't you get it into your turd-brains?

Not just soft, but softer than soft!’

*

Schnapps followed beer and hatched the plot

as the Angelus-bell began to chime:

at the finale, they would all open their mouths,

but no one would sing. The choir would mime.

*

Framed by organ-stops above the hushed nave,

the composer could not believe his ears:

a handful of notes – just this once, his notes –

joining the music of the spheres …

OLIVER REYNOLDS

May, 1945

As the Allied tanks trod Germany to shard

and no man had seen a fresh-pressed uniform

for six months, as the fire storm

bit out the core of Dresden yard by yard,

as farmers hid turnips for the after-war,

as cadets going to die passed Waffen SS

tearing identifications from their battledress,

the Russians only three days from the Brandenburger Tor –

in the very hell of sticks and blood and brick dust

as Germany the phoenix burned, the wraith

of History pursed its lips and spoke, thus:

To go with teeth and toes and human soap,

the radio will broadcast Bruckner's Eighth

so that good and evil may die in equal hope.

PETER PORTER