Discarded Symphony

MAGPIE TALES

DISCARDED SYMPHONY

The ball of screwed-up paper was lying at my feet.

Something made me notice it as I walked along the street.

And so I bent and picked it up, to take a closer look.

Was it a page, torn in a rage, from some rejected book?

I spread it out, expecting some paragraphs or quotes,

And I saw them, marching across the page, a parade of musical notes.

The paper had been mutilated, crushed again and again,

As though by someone suffering immeasurable pain.

This was no casual cast-off, no idly rejected page;

I saw in my hand the evidence of disappointed rage.

And I visualised the musician, waking up in bed,

Hearing a glorious symphony circling in his head.

*

'Eureka!' he cried. 'I've got it! I've waited, oh, so long!

I'd have been content with a a party-piece, a jingle, a little song!

But here's a fully-fledged symphony, circling in my head!

I must rise at once and write it down before inspiration's fled!

I can hear it all! The clarinets, the violins, the basses!

I can see them all, the musicians, expectant in their places!

I shall be lauded, far and wide, like Beethoven or Liszt!

This will be a symphony that no-one can resist!'

*

He would have scrambled to his desk then, a pen in his eager hand,

Still hearing the glorious music, so magnificently grand!

But the music inside his head grew faint as he laboured with his pen.

After one page it died away, never to return again.

As all dreams fade in the morning, so faded his symphony.

So faded his life's ambition; so faded his destiny.

And the paper was screwed in a frenzied ball and out of the window thrown.

He had lost the most glorious symphony the world had ever known!

*

I continued on my morning walk, forgetting my useless find,

When, suddenly, a wonderful symphony

Started playing in my mind...............!

*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

HEY! MONET!

'Pose by that haystack!' I said to him, in my normal bossy tone!

Even as I said it, I sensed it was a clone.

It reminded me of one of Monet's many painted scenes,

Where the golden haystack stands amid the country's brilliant greens.

After I'd got my picture I peered at the board to the right.

Our haystack looked like a Monet! Yes! Well so it might!

An advertisement for a gallery, that's what we'd chanced upon.

When we returned days later the edifice had gone!

*