for music
denunciated banned
accolades awards
pendulum of ecstasy depression
grinding his soul
with one hand of sustenance
the other of punishment…
fifteen symphonies, two operas
preludes fugues quartets concertos
a knock on the door…
friends relatives disappear
no choice but to bend the tune
to their will…
propaganda music!
Politburo-approved themes!
must please a tyrant
in his oppressive utopian lie
or 'disappear'…
producing like a whore
dangling like a marionette
in front of a microphone
trumpted like a horn with their vile words
then scurrying away
into the frightened darkness
one of the few who survived
like a rat licking its scars…
soaring strings, melancholy winds
daring dissonance
secret messages embedded within
"Say the opposite of what you mean"
instruct politically tortured beings
"and someone may understand you on the outside…"
soft song cycles, lyrical poems set to music
melodic polyphonies
seeking…
a final place to rest.
the art of fear
in the Soviet Opera
Pravda editorials
in a great nightmare
of politicized art
media spectacle
public resentment
forged into an unholy alliance…
dancing on a tilted stage
offering a veneer of sophistication
to the thuggery…
slipping by ideology and propaganda bureaus
finding an international audience
commissions come, comissions go
moving independent rhythms
high modern complexities
of spiky young composers
proletarian musicians
grotesque agendas at the core
health plans, sanatoriums
illegitimate designs
smothering pure, original scores
of yearning phrases
timpani pounding relentlessly
over motifs of soft voices
drowned by the drumbeat
of a brutal finale,
severe and threatening,
effective upon their primitive fear…
a velvet prison
of a socialist hero
malevolent splendor
then arrested
following one offending word…
honored with a place
on a January list
of 341 death sentences…
his wife stabbed to death,
then disappearing
on the wrong side
of the "people's will"
which is still idealized
by the naïve on the outside…
Silver trophy winner
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