SEXTET II
This poetry was inspired by piano music and was premiered at the Winchcombe Festival of Music and Arts by Marcel Zidani, pianist, with Helena reading on 30th May 2012.
Each concert poem can be experienced as a frame through which the piece of music is viewed - a new paradigm - if you will. Concert poetry is a way of introducing the listener to a new piece of music or reframing perceptions of the familiar.
~
Spanish Dance 'Oriental' Op. 10 No. 2 by Granados
Poem entitled Barrier Reef
Rumores de la Caleta - Malagueña by Albeniz
Etude Op. 10 No. 1 by Chopin
Poem entitled Foundation Etude
Etude Op. 10 No. 3 by Chopin
Poem entitled Lullaby Etude
Spanish Dance No. 1 from La Vida Breve by Manuel de Falla
Poem entitled Flamenco Spring
Polonaise Op. 53 A-flat Major by Chopin
Katie Morgan
Katie has been a Decorative Painter, Illustrator and commission artist since leaving college in 1985. She gained a BA Hons. in Visual Communication at Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, Wiltshire. Katie loves painting. Her renown hand drawn maps illustrate Cotswold magazines and cards of the Winchcombe meteor are very popular.
John-Paul Gandy aka Sequoia
John-Paul Gandy now known as Sequoia, has performed Helena's music since the 1990's when they met at music college in London. Sequoia is a musical genius and worked as a répétiteur for British opera companies throughout his career, as well as premiering fiendishly difficult piano music for many contemporary music composers, including Joël-François Durand. I am very grateful for his performance and recordings of these concert poetry pieces and hope that you will enjoy them for the gift that they are.
Rumores de la Caleta
Winds cough into trees
Hurling leaves stem-over-tip like used tissues
Wayfaring foliage now belonging to nothing escapes
As whispers uttered under breath, chanting
Meditations of a saturated heart
Leaking its top secrets
Released flame-points ascend on warm draughts -
Breathing soul songs invisibly winding their way up a chimney
The evaporating finishes escape like fleeting thoughts
Remembered then immediately forgotten
Mantras of pensive memories escape
In deep sighs from the depths of house-partners
Facing piles of laundry, watching sinks fill with predictable dishes
And the fridge emptying
As surely as black hands continually move across the face
Of that great determiner of schedules
Closed doors form corridors from where there is no escape
Ushering sojourners in faith toward seasons
Where logs will be fed to fires and leaves will be birthed to trees
Where familiarity accompanies
The only constant that is change and
Departures become arrivals
Foundation Etude
Put your heel on it
Break the soil and dig very deep
To where the clay is solid
But cuts like butter
If prepared well
Pour the foundation and
Allow plenty of time to let it
Set
Inner walls can go up quickly
Straight lines, concrete materials
Dress it as you like with whatever you can afford
Mud and straw, wood, brick, carved stone
Fittings and fixtures
You decide
You live in it
Lullaby Etude
Sweetheart
Close your eyes
It’s OK
Mummy’s here
Listen to her humming
Serene sounds
Melting sadness
Smoothing tired wrinkles
Choose your thoughts
Open
Your imagination
See horses with wings
Flying through white floating clouds
Stormy feelings
Scary pictures
Repetitive thoughts inescapable
Are you there, Mama?
Yes, Darling
Come lie with me
Let my warmth
Encircle you
Hear my heartbeat
Feel my breath upon your head
Let these rhythmic movements of life
Lead you to rest once again
Flamenco Spring
Flames licking undergrowth register the season
Of blurred skies and of controlled burn
A wielded tool in hands of those
Who name “cool fires,” a destruction procedure
The winter hearts wait like a pile of dry logs,
Storage of gasps in a raspy grate,
Cold seeds poised in growing medium
Desperate for damp and warmth to be ignited
Living-stone-seeds penetrated by power from within
Surrender to rampant green fires
Latent energy transformed into fuel
Consumed by a chain of reactions
Hot chocolate earth, foaming ocean of fervour
Aphrodisiac drink of roots and seeds
Stimulates to race in all things living a
Scrambling madness to push upwards and break through
Dark crusty soil onto world’s stage of spotlights
Launching circular processes of combustion
Enter centre stage, Flamenco Spring’s band
La Primavera shouting sonorously
Maraca birdsong, gifting sensualities pulse
Articulating quick rhythm to throw off winter clogs
Flamencista red shoes now tap the tempo
To Woodpecker’s cajónning red beater
Determinedly announcing his stupendous arrival
With manic strikes of a shock-absorbing-head
Flamenco Spring in well-ordered passion
Ascends to the tunes of prenuptial drives
Dancing with the danger of frosts at her back
Secure in trust she thrives
Her smouldering gaze burns off winter resolve
And furrowed brow-boughs frame green glowing-blazings
Explosive, emissive, dimensionless quantities
Her volume hard to contain
Flamenco Spring is applauded with bouquets
Anemophilous flowers so generously thrown
To be caressed by the hands of a breeze so gentle
The most delicate of filaments relinquish their hold
For transfers mediated by the wind
Boticelli’s diaphanous world-renown dresses
Cannot even begin to compete
With the exquisite billows of Prunus avium ‘Plena’-
Wild white cherry tree
Draughts of Pheromone encircle La Señora
Perfumed enticing pathways
Signals of status, powerful attractants
Chemically eliciting quick responses
As mysteriously as cohesion-tension
Pulls her sap to rise upwards
Is baffling joy in dire circumstances and peace
In the midst of a storm
Flamenco Spring is green fire performing
Growth flashes twisting, transforming
All movements accomplished with entire precision
Lightning fast-footwork under elegant curves
With immediate fury the controlled, tended flames
In proud carriage rise and crouch
Well-regulated with water-fuel and sunshine-oxygen
Expressive limbs extend, curtail
Unfurlings of a tightly held body
Flamencista refreshes by taking Spring waters
Of swollen torrents, eloping runoffs,
The bubbling streams that laugh their way down
Tumbling hillsides corriendo, corriendo
Down, down gathering momentum
Meeting at cobble shores
To make light work of polishing boulders into sand
That gravity pulls to the sea
In fast-forward watching of slow-motion details
Flamenco Spring’s soul is evident
Her duende real, and power, great
Hands clap, nascents explode
In the dancing fertility of the world
Polonaise
Mucking out stalls soon becomes a chore when all
One dreams is of being a jockey
Activated thought lunges forward at top speed
On racing thoroughbred of emotion
Neck and neck running in ¾ rhythm
Towards taut ribbon stretching
Clarifying line of resolution or understanding or
Frustrated disappointment at
Falling behind
How much
Would you put down
On fingers that grope in darkness
To find powered switch of
Enlightenment
Taking the winnings of
Living a life turned on?
Sport of Kings
Self-Awareness Gold Cup
Costly at any
Price
