By Jonathan Taylor
My life has all been paper.
– Gustav Mahler to Alma Mahler
I built godless cathedrals out of it,
upside-down Chinese pavilions,
sleigh-bell heavens, stained-glass hells,
tearing, folding orchestral sound like origami.
I shut my sick heart inside. For that I am sorry,
Alma. My very death will be a certificate,
a discord the Vienna Philharmonic can’t play,
the Entartete Musik of a forgotten Jew.
And when the great conflagration comes,
as we know it must, a hundred million dots
will go up in smoke. Only ashes will remain,
falling back down like dissonance,
then settling like grey snow, like atonality.
*This poem was originally published in my collection Cassandra Complex (Shoestring, 2018).
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
The arts and creativity are what make us human. At heart they are not superfluities, or commodities: they are who we are.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
I write a lot about music, and am fascinated with the challenges posed by musical ekphrasis: that is, somehow trying to capture musical experience in words.
Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
As the father of twins, I find what we are doing in the West, politically and environmentally, hard to bear. We are in danger of leaving them nothing.