but the border police & over-excited immigration officers in their new uniforms egged on by the gutter press had meanwhile hatched the notion that I was sneaking back & forth between commie France & regal Italy in order to foment revolution it was time to move on & in spite of my high-tech hardware & green comfy software the currents of life & art began to dissolve the grains of hatred lodged between my teeth
2
I can't say when my daring plan softened to old ideas but I know that for a magic month I wandered in & out of Nice through air full of its own music I watched the sea from orange groves & vines of sunlit hills for days that grew inside me like leaves alone I wrote as naturally as a shoal turns in the tide & I turned towards Rome
3
after enduring gang-show opera down through the peninsula I arrived in Rome in time for the feast of Corpus Christi what treats were now in store what heavenly aesthetics a circus trundling into town would have breathed more spirituality than this confectionary warehouse wrapped in whorehouse curtains – & the music a capella elephants jostling to be first back up the Alps echoed like brays & slaps off each soft cheek of the Virgin
4
in Rome we did what students do make a racket & wish they were in Paris (except the ones in Paris who yearn for New York) we stepped around the famous sites ten years since John Keats died arranged excursions to the local wines planned longer trips to Venice & Milan Florence Naples Palermo Rome & the Academy left me cold except for the shadows of the Colosseum & the resonances of St. Peter’s it struck a chord in me forever & I would step into serenity as I left the heat of the city for the cool beauty of elsewhere I’d unpack some Byron squat in an accommodating confessional & read through spacious marble silence the daft & burning passions of our wine-dark wine-soaked hearts until the dying of the light
5
the best days in Italy were those spent walking away from myself along the lanes & tracks that led from the city across the plains of Lazio towards the hill country moving up into Abruzzo in an old straw hat & my pottering shirt I’d grab a gun or guitar & follow my unmissable nose my head & tongue were heavy with Virgil & key change the ecology of orchestration I stirred myself to tears singing & composing in the footsteps of the bard I wept for Turnus & Lavinia & I sang glittering armour into being in the corners of my eyes those walks were the only perfect compositions of my life the significant tremor of reed gut & skin tuned to weather
6
I listen to bits of that tinny pimp Rossini with my knuckles tuned to my teeth
I would rather have rusty skewers hammered into my hips than listen to one of his operas
Beethoven tends to come up through the bowels like a good suppository
I find I have to swallow with consideration for timing when listening to Mozart
the better the work the more of my body is in my ear
originality in art tends to be the juxtaposition of several incompatible anachronisms
7
each track & wood was overshadowed by the Apennines a monastery bell from the next valley someone shouting behind a hut a raucous bird coughing in a dead bush just enough variety & dissonance to help you recognise the planet the music of the Abruzzi is played with enormous verve & self-confidence with each player in tune irrespective of the others & playing with impeccable timing unlike one's colleagues the bagpipes will make you forget your future they just go in one ear & stay there
8
don't forget to get ripped off on a day trip from Naples you can go anywhere I went to Nisida they emptied my wallet treated me to a dinner so big I could have sat in it & lifted my feet from the floor they felt guilty afterwards & scurried around with much furtive shouting before presenting me with a keepsake the biggest onion in the world no I have not
9
it's always worth popping into churches & other sites of uneasy need & ambition the music of yearning of affiliation self-satisfaction or stomach-clenching loneliness you can watch expressions postures reflections & arches & hear the loss echoing through our rooms the bigger the building the greater the emptiness underlined by every art under the sun
