FINAL MOVEMENT

Bursting with anarchy in a rule-bound school
our voices already broken under an avalanche
of hormones, we were no use to our music master
and his other passion - the Boys' High Choir.

A sanguine penguin man whom we held hostage
in his own music room, tying him to a chair
as we played rock 'n roll on his new stereo
violating those then novel twin speakers
with latest raunchy sounds from America.

No Bach Goes To Town, just bouncing Bill Haley
ripping up Fifties foxtrots with rim shots
and wicked guitars that had poor penguin
stamping his feet in out-of-time anger
to his anti-Christ, nemesis in black vinyl.

He tried to touch our souls with symphonies
but could not compete. A forty-five revolution
had arrived. He hung in for decades. With others
made some records, took his choir world-touring
to achieve some small fame for his first love.

Now my sister writes he has Alzheimer's disease.
In a rest home sits all day in front of a piano
crying over the keys, black and white a memory
blur. Too late now, I know, but - sorry Sir.

---

THROUGH A MICROSCOPE, DARKLY

The retirement dream of a leading doctor
is to research the minds of our writers!
Seems the black dog of depression barks
at their achilles heels louder than those

more tuned to the real world - that place
where a dentist reclaimed a pensioner's
teeth for non-payment, and another dentist
pulled gold fillings from Jewish mouths

before their flesh peeled off in ovens of
final solution. Do dentists get depressed?
Then there's the right-to-lifers gunning
down health workers, and the dads who kick

their sons to death for daring to dance
after dark. But the good physician thinks
those that reach for a pen for pain relief
deal less well with reality, says scientists

and politicians have it more in perspective.
Yes, so does that horse that's winning today's
Prozac Derby. His blinkers are the best leather.
He's grinning as he flashes first past the post.