We fought and wrestled over tune and line,

and your piano sung, and you were sharp

and dismissive, as you always were with me,

but somehow in this crazy cacophony of

person-to-person, in madness, there arose new

works that stood proud, creative (surprising really!),

grew luminous above both our small geniuses

and became something greater than the rundown

hall in which they were performed with the

gusto of rank amateurs and stage-shy youth.

 

This was in a time now gone when you

and I opened up a world of word, song and

dance that felt fresh when everyone else

was slogging through hackneyed musicals

long time past their golden age of relevance.

 

Now, in these latter days when I am quite lost to you,

by chance I see you in this godforsaken place

for the aged, here with your sense half

gone, in a sea of paranoia, where age has

robbed your strength, but you recognise

me and we chat in scattered thoughts,

in this momentary portal, about those

days of courage when we wrote and

fought and grappled with the possibility of

something new and we made it happen

in this cold empty hall, we made it happen

in this our church: in the lights with the band

and with the worshipping players who gave

all they had for this sacred thespian cause.

 

No longer is there a wrestle, a piano and a song,

the hall is musty and empty and nothing remains,

and you are shut away and the world has changed,

but I still grieve these days of faith when we fought

and fought, and created wonders with a passion still

felt, and though you were an atheist of the scathing kind,

to the god of theatre, Dionysus, you bowed your head.

 

30/11/2025