Hard to imagine a universe without sound – /
why else call it the Big Bang? /
From background noise to formal structure: /
Sibelius heard chords reverberating in a forest, / ...
She shuffles it like a pack of cards, /
testing the silent breath in the pleats. /
With the air button pressed, fingers tease /
but the instrument stays mute – / ...
The cows have gathered in an adjacent field, /
I can see their shapes in the moonlight – /
a meeting of the tribes, they are here in their multiplicity; / ...
That day, the pique and gleam of it /
lyric and play, clouds bouncing, sea /
in rosies and dip at the shore’s lip /
when he came in his sleek quieting / ...
From a deep brain-embedded place /
the recurring doodle kept slouching out, /
caught on paper when she rode the small-town bus /
to school, the tantalizing H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D / ...
novel excerpt (Cillian Press, October 2013)
Marion owns an artists’ agency in London and in the first passage Jean-Claude, a French painter Marion represents, is in New York on the eve of a solo show:
‘Jean-Claude leaned on the railings…