Three Poems

Now to the Elements

in memory of Ernst Jandl

Peace, haughty voices
Propounding on the radio
Motets in trimeters.

Who ekes you out? A gnome? Oh no,
A kindly man whose back is bent,
He pumps a wooden bar

The nether end of which
Propels the bows across viola strings -
Strings; no doubt about it.

Expunged a human element,
The manuals achieve a formal
Clockwork. So the music sounds

Satisfactory, till across
A cobalt sky gusts of air
...