dwsChorale: Music

The Park on Sunday

(

)

David W Solomons

A mix of a-cappella 20th century and madrigal styles with a smidgen of Lennox Berkley, Britten and who knows what else.

A sultry day in Loughborough park is the inspired subject.

The poem is by my father.

The score can be downloaded free of charge here (AABarB) Br> or, transposed up for mixed choir, here (SSATB)

The Park on Sunday
- poem by S N Solomons

The air is heavy this afternoon,
Weighs heavily upon the mind
And the heat, semi translucent,
Presses against the slate blue sky,

Tactile as a membrane,
Bulging like cling film over
The pulsing microwave
Of Loughborough Park.

And Time is slow and viscous.

And scattered haphazard
On the path and grass,
Objects, people, and colours
Have a surreal identity.

The grass is greener,
Sounds more strident,
People perfect samples,
Everything in your face.

And Time is slow and viscous

Little old ladies
With short white curly hair
Take short light genteel steps
Into their Third Age.

Old gaffers with shiny pates,
Moustache akimbo,
And spine welded stiff,
Recalling how they used to march
In their lost past.

And Time is slow and viscous

Families spread untidily
And ungainly upon the grass,
With fat pink ideal babies
Squirming and cooing.
And fat pink young mothers,
Posing and dozing.

Floating and flirting girls,
Golf ball muscled boyos
Showing off to them,
Showing off their talents
To the talent.

And Time is slow and viscous
In Loughborough Park.

(c) Stanley N Solomons