Two Poems by Simon Turner
La Città Nuova: a construction for Antonio Sant'Elia
"every generation will have to build its own city"
the fire escapes clatter up the walls
repetitious inky arpeggios
everything is happening &
all at once hissing yellow
repetitious inky arpeggios
jasmine tongues the gas jets
all at once hissing yellow
igniting the interstices of
jasmine tongues the gas jets
everything is arpeggios
igniting the interstices of
repetitious inky gas jets
everything is arpeggios
jasmine tongues the walls
repetitious inky gas jets
igniting the inky arpeggios
jasmine tongues the walls
fire tongues the gas jets
igniting the inky arpeggios
everything is hissing yellow
fire tongues the gas jets
everything is happening &
everything is yellow
the fire escapes, clatters up the walls
To Be Bewildered
I wrote this piece for John Cage;
it has something to do with John Cage:
John Cage caught in a traffic jam;
John Cage and his mother;
Cage on the East Coast
sipping iced tea with John Cage.
Cage is going round universities,
although Cage admits a multiplicity.
What about the Cage influence?
Well, I mean, Cage was great;
I respect Cage and I got to know him a little:
I've always respected Cage.
Many of us have a debt to Cage:
everybody has read John Cage's writings;
this book began with John Cage.
Look at the way Cage worked,
writing music that sounds like Cage,
five minutes in length and open, like Cage:
of course, that's what Cage was very good at.
What you like in John Cage is John Cage,
although Cage would never say it like that:
un-Cage-like.
I had the chance of actually seeing Cage –
by following what Cage said
I went down to Cage's to use his piano:
Cage's comment inspired the experiment.
The philosophies of John Cage –
John Cage's music, for instance;
John Cage's phone number;
Cage’s belief that one should hear music as sound.
When Cage died
Cage came up to me afterwards and said,
"Striking non-intentionally at the Oriental moon",
whatever the hell that means.
I wrote this piece for John Cage;
it has something to do with John Cage.
[Assemblage – source: Geoff Smith and Nicola Walker Smith, American Originals: Interviews with 25 Contemporary Composers (London: Faber, 1994): vi and passim]
