Frank Corcoran

I´ll give in Dublin two special soundscapes ,

My Percussion Concert ´s one ( – see what it takes …. ) ,

Then James Joyce Evening , words and tones and my

Reciting voice , reJoycing him and I .



Words and tones can sound and bend and cry:

” Verbum caro , carmen factum est …. “

Joyce rhapsodic , soaring rhythmic zest .

” Kinetic ” , synaesthetic tone-words fly .



This foam at the mouth in mad March air

Swirls and twirls my whitening hair ….

( But In another sense , there´s nothing there ,



´Cept air all singing plus a certain flair )

It´s a break from singed songs of Death and War

And Drones ( Atone ! ) and winter-bombs afar.

I´ ve known Frank Corcoran over eighty years ,

I´ve forgiven his rhymings , fiddling ” fears ” with ” tears” ….

And rhapsodic verses , aerophonic thinking ,

The sheen of strings he loves , the brass all glinting



In a tutti blazing . ( There is nothing wrong

With orchestral tearing ; blaring your own song . )

Flying butresses there were in Frank´s long life ,

Sorrows also twisted the keen knife .



” He sought the right note ” , ” An Nóta Ceart ! “

We´ll chisel in stone ( – is also nearly art . )

Long before decline will wish to start .



Over eighty years his rambling grumbles

At time´s now hoary , gory rough -and -tumble .

But it behoves be proud , yet also humble .

Astronomy in Mesolithic Times

Knew their winter-solstice had to rhyme

With future hope of food and of bear-hunt

Success ( apologize ! ) He bore the brunt



Of spears and sharpened dagger ( ” Sorry , bear ! ” )

Within , the desperate killing in its lair ,

Bear- steaks and fatty food for little child-

– Ren running bare-foot , tripping , cold and wild .



They knew the earth , their globe, it had to turn

Around again , or else they´d fully burn ,

While flirring , whirring , whizzing towards the sun ,



Or lost in outer space , full freezing done ,

Their mesolithic winter , shivering , fun ,

All glaciers gleaming like a nuclear gun.

Sebastian Bach came by to quaff a glass

At Cafe Zimmermann , Rhenish , fast ,

The score uncopied , soprano wobble dast-

-Ardly , Bach was hardly friendly …. Yet I asked :



” Music and suffering , Cantor ? Or the ” Pass-

-Us Duriusculus ? I´d like to ask …. “

” Get back to your counterpoint ! ” ( I was young and callow …. )

” Bend it to your will ! And stop being fallow ! “



Nearly blind, a son was leading , Friedemann .

” Will no one find me better weed in Zimmermann ´s ? “

Bach´s pipe gone out , his temper was not everyman´s ….



They left again , into the Leipzig dusk ,

Tobacco and wine – a little …. Well , es muss

Sein . That great forehead . long gone to dust .

I love a first performance of a work

Of mine , its sounding tones becoming time ,

And massed motifs and densities and lines

Of thought – the very air will wish to rhyme



With trellised themes , an ” idea ” gone berserk .

Sound´s made flesh , it births there one more time ,

Aerial architecture , points and lines

Of joy or horror ( Mozart´s in his lime …. ) .



It is a birth , a sonic celebration .

It sings ( or bows or plucks ) a ” story ” plain ,

Contorted , ornamented , performed pain..



There is a mystery going on , a gong

Being stroked or choked , a harp bass strong ,

The mystery of all this is very long .

The seeds of conflict long are ripe , are rotten .

None foresees the future , not those who make it .

Sykes and Picot should not be forgotten….

Genocide ! We no more can fake it !



I´m reading ” PALESTINE PAPERS ” , desert capers

On donkey and on camel , drawing frontiers

After the Great War ( do not lose those papers ! ) .

Now it´s rotting children , ceased all black tears .



A sonnet can but warn . Carpentry squeaks

Its Caoine while the juice of dead lads leaks .

A bomb-dumb -or -deaf hero ´s spittle speaks



These seeds of conflict , germinating long

Their Phrygian song of bitter , ancient wrong ,

Is this now Armageddon ? ( Ding , dong , gong …. )

Lutoslawski’s ” LIVRE ” – my heart is on my sleeve !

Those sound- bits and bites , his ” BOOK ” gives reprieve

To me who’ ve bathed in masterworks galore ….

( They oft transported me to the other shore …. )




But his work goes much further with my heart ,

So fully rent by high orchestral art ,

His lines and fragments lived , a suffered store

Of human ( few men’s ) ” joy” ecstatic . More .



Of course great music hides the little self .

Lutoslawski’s LIVRE ignores the shelf

On which I sit too long , a patient Guelph



Who waits for new prevailing winds to show

My music’s language , ( how the winds did blow

In works of my fickle past , Nono . Oh , NO ! )

from Frank Corcoran A THOUSAND TERRIBLE SONNETS


Grave and gravestone planning , oh what fun !

Chisel , hammer , peperino stone ,

” He sought the right note ” , ” an no´ta ceart ” .

Even the seeking , is that too , not art ?



Peperino stone´s quite friendly , fights

” The goodly fight ” ( And here St. Paul was right …. ) .

The chisel chips a jolly script in stone .

It dares to say my pilgrim´s prayer is one



With all our proud taunting of friend , Time ,

( The chisel´s wiggle , faint heart , Mozart´s lime ….

Memento mori , clay and humus , slime …. )



The tombstone chiseller ´s dancing with The Leveller ,

No place here for mourner , any sniveller .

Each cut word is precious for the traveller .

This here is not a grabble, nor yet a grapple, a blog or log or even e-mooing.
I write it for myself ( and my eavesdrippers, certainly )and to myself, seeking clarity through doing, I mean writing, formulating these thoughts and musical thoughts and work-in-progress and also examining my ( others? Own up ! ) thrust to The Mirror, Narcissus At The Surface, what I am “up to” mentally and compositionally. Eavesdrip by all means ( legal, please ). Welcome all scopological e-readers, peeping Thomasinas…

Yes, that last entry cam e from Jocelyn Braddell, The Handstand for March 2005 ” RTE Living Music Festival”.
Humph. How time changeth. Et nos mutamur in illo. Humph