Becoming The Music

An Orpheus I take to the Underground to search for you on the brown line of the Bakerloo descending & ascending escalators as if I ascended into Heaven or descended into Hell. I walk through echoing tunnels the echoes of echoes my footsteps accompany the classical music they pipe to commuters soundtracking our life. Bowed & beaten I instantly change my step & walk in a Ride Of The Valkerye way change as I change trains becoming The Tale of The Kalandar Prince Rimsky Korsakov each footstep & see approaching me (Oh Gluck!) a drunk beggar walking with the gait of a Carmina Burana I act at once and Tchaikovsky out of his way & enter sunlight to the strains of Beethoven once again in this goodly air where birds are the only singers. ******* I love music but like to choose when I can hear it and what I want to hear at that moment...I hate the choice being taken away from me. My daily journey begins and ends at Kilburn Park Station and one enters and exits to the strains of classical music that only leaves one as one goes down or comes up to one’s train. It is a pain but what can’t be changed must be endured. If I wanted music I would have I-Pod’d myself. It also devalues the music by turning it into mere boring wallpaper. One day I tried to keep it at bay with this poem.