Читать книгу Devils & Islands - Turner Cassity - Страница 12

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

1897–1957

The perfect hero, perfect plot,

I did not live to score.

That would have meant, as like as not,

Techniques I used before,

But barer. Fewer upward sweeps

Among the strings; no harps;

Fanfares, but diatonic; leaps

Of key from flats to sharps

Avoided, save where, as with change

Of focus, they explain.

You cannot treat the Texas Range

And soundstage Spanish Main

In one tonality. But who

For hero, what the script?

A costumed Jüd in derring-do

Or Zarathustra stripped?

I am not Richard Strauss, alas,

Enjoying it both ways.

I am not sure it’s greener grass

Or topiary maze

Or Herod’s cistern I am in,

With Bette Davis soap.

And underscoring Errol Flynn

Needs certain skills to cope

Or one’s own head is on the plate.

Not quite Jokanaan,

Contract renewed and up to date,

I notate on and on,

Who am an exile exiled thrice:

From city, era, tongue.

Of course, Vienna has its price.

I am no bard unsung.

Ex-prodigy I, you ex-star,

For our time left to be

We are in real life what we are.

The hero may be me.