A scrap of paper tumbles down the street.

On rainy evenings Schumann jotted down

his melodies on windowpanes. “Such harmony!

We cannot hear it.” The radio goes off and on.

At the rehearsal Gustav Holst exclaimed,

“I’m sick of music, especially my own!”

The relatives of Berlioz were horrified.

Haydn’s wife used music to line pastry pans.

On rainy nights the ghost of Mendelssohn

brought melodies for Schumann to compose.

“Such harmony is in immortal souls….

We cannot hear it.” One could suppose

Herr Bruckner would have smiled. At Tegernsee

the peasants stood to hear young Paganini play,

but here there’s lightning, and the thunder rolls.

The radio goes off and on. The rain

falls to the pavement like applause.

A scrap of paper tumbles down the street.

On rainy evenings Schumann would look out

and scribble on the windows of his cell.

“Such harmony.” Cars splash out in the rain.

The relatives of Berlioz were horrified

to see the horses break from the cortege

and gallop with his casket to the grave.

Liszt wept to hear old Paganini play.

Haydn’s wife used music to line pastry pans.

GOD ONLY KNOWS

Here is the church,
Here is the steeple,
Open it up,
And see all the people.

God only knows

if Bach’s greatest work

was just an improvised

accompaniment

between two verses of a hymn,

one that stopped the burghers

squirming in their pews

and made them not only

listen to the organ in the loft

but actually hear the roof

unbend itself

and leave the church wide

open to a terrifying sky

which he had filled with angels

holding ledgers

for a roll call of the damned,

whom they would have named,

had not the congregation

started up the final chorus

and sung

to save their souls.

A CURSE ON GEOGRAPHERS

We want an earth to walk upon,

Not reasons to remain at home.

Shall we make journeys only to see

The same stars circling in the night?

Eat the same fish in foreign harbors?

Breathe the same air? Sail across

These oceans only to discover

Our own island’s other shore?

Let the oceans spill their green from off

The edges of the earth, and let

The curving plain unbend itself

Behind the mountains. Put wind back

Into the cheeks of demons. Voice,

Pronounce your reasonable desire

And sing the round earth flat again!

A SHORT HISTORY OF TOBACCO

Profitable, poisonous, and purely American—

it was Columbus who discovered it

on reaching China, noticing the leaves

in a canoe. He sent his men ashore

to find the Great Khan’s palace. They returned

to tell of squatting natives who drank smoke.

Rolfe smuggled seeds to cold, bankrupt Virginia.

When he returned years later, all the streets

were planted with the crop, the marketplace

and churchyards overgrown. Grim ministers

preached harvest from the pulpit and stood out

among the fields at night to guard their tithes.

More valuable than silver, worth ten times