Peter Wyton

Percussion Lover

Celeste, I’m up to here with your orchestra of admirers,
Romantic knights of the symphonic round table,
Sir Flute and his wind section versus chivalrous strings,
Jousting in gentlemanly fashion for the chance to seduce you.

I can’t be doing with it. I want to hijack you
Back to the instrumentation of troglodyte, temple and tribe,
When music was elemental, not incidental.
Tubular chimes. Sonorous stones. Concussion sticks.

Black-tied and impeccable, they have you surrounded,
So many bars on the cage of an opulent drawing room jail,
Where you sit motionless, smooth-limbed prisoner-of-sound,
Straitjacketed in your shining tube of evening wear.

An exponent of direct action, I’m coming after you
With cymbals and pellet-bells, kettle gongs, rattles,
The blatter of drumsticks across stretched membrane,
I’ll be your carilloneur, your tintinabulist.

                                   ***

When the dust settles, we’re half a hemisphere away,
Leaving a jumble of music stands, spaghetti of broken strings,
Dribble of mouthpiece spit. A cacophony of bum notes
Echoes in the whirlwind of our departure.

It’s dawn. We can see snow-capped peaks through latticing,
But it’s warm where we lie on a mess of tasselled cushions.
When we go belly to belly, dancers with tambours and castanets
Stamp the tiles of a fountain drenched courtyard, whooping us on.

Regime Change Pending

Teheran, 1978

At dawn, we’re floating down to Runway Two-Nine Left.
Stark evidence of last night’s rioting scrolls balefully
Beneath the fuselage. Abandoned lorries, ransacked,

Jack-knifed across dual carriageways. Loot-litter
Wriggling in agitated ribbons towards the slums.
We land. The air attache’s at the aircraft steps,

Wants us off-base, but not to our hotel downtown.
More ferment forecast after midday prayers. Crammed
In a crew-coach, we are told to spend the morning in the hills,

Keep a low profile, not wear Air Force headgear
In the (Imperial Iranian Air Force) bus!
For hours we trek the goat tracks, swallow draughts

Of chilly Alborz air, drink Pepsi-Cola
Numbed in tumbling streams, swap pleasantries
With villagers hefting hand-made carpets to bazaars.

Hungry at length, we plod, stiff-legged, down to Darband,
Where scenery and suburbia collide and sluice gates
Channel water to the town, order Star lager,

Chel-o-kebab in a café, occupy a balcony
Which should, but doesn’t give a prospect of the capital.
Somewhere beneath the ceiling of sand-cloud, petrol fumes,

Four million people live and toot their car-horns ceaselessly,
Mullahs mutter, a bemedalled King of Kings
Strives to remain astride the tiger of his nation.

Denied our panorama, we survey the street.
Road labourers have coaxed a cur to swallow
Poisoned meat, apparently so they can bet

Upon the length of time the mongrel takes to die.
Hunkered in gutters, they surround the vomiting beast.
Heads wag. Lean fingers reach repeatedly to check the pulse.

Rials change hands. Passers-by pause, become involved.
Hot-beetroot sellers wheel their carts around the growing throng,
Joined by pistachio peddlers, yodelling wares.

The dog dies. Someone scoops the pot. Our driver
Navigates us downtown, via a cascade of orange taxis,
suicidal scooterists. We check in, laze around the pool.

At dusk, guests congregate along the hotel roof
To watch the axe of curfew fall across the streets.
Pedestrians slide from view like conjured cards.

All private vehicles vanish, leaving squad cars, army jeeps
To make a snarling racetrack of the boulevards.
Muffled reports are audible, occasionally. We hit the sack,

A lullaby of sirens fractures slumber now and then.
Curfew ends at dawn. Chaos of traffic switches on again.
We shuttle back to Mehrabad, start up, take off.

Climbing away, thin wreaths of smoke come reaching up
Imploringly, like beggars’ fingers, from the barricades
Formed out of stacked-up tyres, near pillaged shopping malls.

“Stuff that for a game of soldiers,” someone grunts
Into the intercom, as we gain altitude,
Set course in the direction of the Turkish border.