The Monday Poem

A real challenge from TFE this week.

We were to listen to a 10-minute piece of music by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, called Threnody for the Victims and write whatever it inspired in us.

The Fundamental Inscrutability of Musical Sensibility


Now, I like a good tune, me, Dad said.
Something can I bawl off-key
And bounce off every steamy bathtime tile.

Volins scream a hard knife-edge
Across the horizon of my hearing.

You can't hum this on your way to work,
Nor tunelessly whistle what hasn't got a tune.
How do they even know they're playing it right?

I'm chilled to the bone by notes on taut leashes
Gnashing their teeth at each other, barely a semitone apart.

And what's all that jungle-banging drums malarkey?
It sounds like an old tin dustbin
Tossed down a light of concrete steps.

Now comes the hollow bass, a dark cavern,
A pit yawning wide at my feet.

Aye, it's a moving piece right enough, he laughed.
When I heard it I started moving away at once.
My Dad, the music critic.

Their screams, I hear them now.
Now and probably forever.

I have to say I dislike this kind of music intensely (my own modest efforts are slightly less edgy than Barry Manilow, which explains a lot) but there is no denying there is power in this piece - power and terror.

Great challenge, TFE!