and I seem to be playing them on a bassoon,
a bassoon I was given just before the curtain
went up, in an orchestra where everyone else
is playing strings, where the audience expects
strings, expects melody, expects easy listening,
did not ask – did not think of asking – for a bloke
with a bassoon. I don’t even know how to play
this bassoon, I don’t know which way up to hold it,
how to coax it into life, or if I should. I don’t know
whether the noise it’s making is intentional or a cry
for help, and I’m terrified, Eric, I’m terrified I’ll take
someone’s eye out with it, or concuss a passer by,
because there’s some solid weight to a bassoon,
let me tell you, there’s a hefty clout just waiting.
And you don’t need to tell me that my tempo’s
all to cock, that the orchestra’s hitting the beats
in a solid 4/4, and I’m picking numbers from a hat,
I know that, same as I know I keep coming in at
the wrong point – was that it? did I miss it then? –
I always come in at the wrong point, Eric, come
in at the wrong point with a bassoon in a song
written solely for the elegance of strings.
There are days, I’ll be honest, when I’ve thought
of jacking it in, of leaving the bassoon on a bus,
or in menswear, of abandoning it in a lay-by,
leaning it against the urinals in a backstreet club
and doing a runner. But then I remember you,
Eric, how you responded when the expert
– and what do they know, eh? – when the expert
said you were doing it all wrong. I can see you
clear as day, see you walking over, grabbing
them by the lapels, explaining – slowly, carefully –
that you were playing all the right notes, sunshine,
but not necessarily in the right order, I remember
how you slapped them gently round the chops,
put them down, Eric, I remember that you smiled,
and in that moment gave us something to aspire to.
© Steve Pottinger