The Old Man Comes Out With an Opinion

This long orchestral piece records a day
the composer spent one summer meditating
in Dibnah’s yard on the sounds of dereliction,
or possibly the dereliction of sound:

the settlement of rust, the flake and drift
toward the earth of forged and hammered things,
the creak of shiny flanges in the wind,
and the occasional crash of martial metal
as boys dribbled a biscuit box along
between the ornamental tetanus hedges
of Fred’s Versailles, parterres of ferrous oxide.

Sometimes I wish that Fred’s new crush-compactor
had crumpled the composer (violin solo)
and his jalopy (piano, timpani)
in one bright ingot, multicoloured foil
(cymbals), and hoyed the lot in the canal

(a genuine splash!, an hommage to John Cage).