A key for clarinet, improvising to avoid a train wreck

From Times Literary Supplement, 9 April 2014, a poem worth reading, by John Mole

Options

Published: 9 April 2014

to Margaret Grover

There being this key
insufficiently padded
and therefore, of course,
wouldn’t you believe it,
the one most needed
for the clarinet sonata
we’ve agreed to play,
I consider my options,
whether a gap
is better than a squeak,
how not to miss the beat
and throw you, risking
that fatal trainwreckwhere we don’t get back
together on the rails.
Oh life, how easy
to make a mess of it
or improvise
to cope with its surprises,
leaving either
swift recovery or silence
stunned and empty
hanging in the air.

I must admit it does something for me that I can’t wholly explain. Its combination of sense, fluidity, and promise of something profound maybe. Frankly, I don’t care. I like it and here offer for blog reader’s pleasure — and as incentive to read TLS, which I recommend.

More on John Mole here.