Scott, Steve - This Sad Music

Scott, Steve - This Sad Music:
http://youtu.be/lRcCJVjSl28

This Sad Music

The whales are dying now,
hurling themselves upon the beaches
black dice reckoned under the sun's watchful gaze

There's sweat on the preacher's brow
as he talks about damnation.
The whales are in love with no one
They wanted to die without explanation

He mops his brow and quotes Malcolm Muggeridge
on - quote -
"the collapse of western civilization"
- end quote -
and the book he waves in the air
is as black as whaleskin

He urges people to "make their decision"
and the whales have made their decision

An awful silence surrounds them
Like a ruined castle they lie
still, passive, beyond explanations

Beads of sweat on the preacher's brow
like small clear animals clinging to a rock face
or like tiny transparent whales
flinging themselves from the boiling seas of his eyes
into a slow, certain dying

The sad music in their brains, a piper's lament
from that old castle in the mist-thickened night

"FIFTEEN THOUSAND CINEMAS ACROSS THIS LAND,
DEPICTING EVERY SEXUAL ACT KNOWN TO
THE HUMAN IMAGINATION!" shouts the preacher

His voice is a door slamming shut
the sea's noise is a vast intake of breath
a gesture in a room to break the silence
now the whales have broken the silence

They are the color of the preacher's harsh words

The white foam rushes to embrace them
like mother and father
The whales do not want to know, and now

There are people sprawled on the beaches
chained together by "HUMAN IMAGINATION"
All the music has bled out of them,
drained from the ends of their fingers
splashed from the loudspeakers of their wallets

And at the end of the service, people walk forward
Perhaps it is "the collapse of western civilization"
that moves them
or the sad music of their slow, certain dying
that guides their feet

And at the end of this poem
a strange light comes off the bodies of the whales
gathering up the shadows like driftwood
and splashing them against the far walls

you would think the shadows would make
the words there hard to read
However, I find it's at a time like this
I see the writing clearest of all

(c) Steve Scott 1983