| A BIT OF MAHLER TOO MUCH |
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This is the gospel of my youth, of my young manhood, of my middle years; of yesterday: if love contradicted art, then love went out of the window; put in another way, art was also love that could not fade. Well, today it did do; twice: right in the middle of the most moving part of the Mahler symphony I was listening to, I thought of how violins were made; the philosophic carving skills called for by music; and then when I read Mahler's remarks on art and love in the programme, I realised I had either lived too long or not enough. Then, late last night, I thought it neither: in fact, I had lived expecting too much to be perfectly realised revelation; I expected Sunday worship every day of the week, every hour, every minute, every second. Love, meanwhile, came and went like years; until yesterday, listening to Mahler when time was up on the poem of it all and my life-time passed like a lost second I could never ever make up. |
Geoffrey Godbert has had eight volumes
of poetry published, the last two being
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN TATOOING? (Selected Poems
University of Salzburg, 1996) and
I WAS NOT, MAD TODAY (University of Salzburg, 1997).
With Harold Pinter, he is co-editor of two current
Faber poetry anthologies, 100 POEMS BY 100 POETS
and 99 POEMS IN TRANSLATION. Born in Manchester, UK he
now lives in London and is editor of Diamond Press,
publishers of experimental poetry.
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Poem © Geoffrey Godbert, 1999 Web design by Gerald England This page last updated: 3rd November 2002. |