Food

 

Food

 

If music is the food of love, Orsino,

play on—give us a song.

Make it bang up to date,

on time, not late,

something to make them feel great.

 

Those older singers got it wrong—

there’s no MC rapping,

no sampled backbeats,

no grunts like hogs humping fire.

Orsino -

put down your harpsichord and lyre.

 

So say all of us at the leavers' ball,

they're due to traipse through the hall

come noon, doomsday. We’re set up,

gears lit, cable snakes,

soundcheck’s done, the bass hums.

 

Adam's got his usual apple fingers,

sore throat—so draft in three singers,

last minute, Year 10,

one hour rehearsing,

confident grins,

to knock Bedingfield’s Unwritten

out of the park,

three more of us sit behind,

biding time,

on keyboard, bass, electric drums.

 

But no Viola, Orsino—Olivia comes.

Not one for micromanaging?

Oh, let it not be so—

no bureaucratic black hat,

no clef-chinned, crochety grin,

no poking her thin nose in

where it doesn’t belong.

Orsino, give us a song.

 

Wait—she says the singing’s wrong.

Bass is flat, hit the hi-hat,

“you don’t play keyboards like that,”

and ah—it’s her musical knowledge

we lack.

And where, she asks, is her beloved Adam?

 

Thank you for your help, madam,

but Orsino, the blood drains quick

from young faces taking places.

You can track the tears, traces

where confidence fled—

from singers come to sing the song,

celebrate those moving on

who leave today - graduate,

to step beyond her metal gates,

into the wild blue yonder.

 

Orsino, they were younger

when they first came through those doors—

weren’t we all?

Soft-eyed, half-sure, before inspectors

from overseas

left slime trails on those who lead,

stamped feet, stamped marks,

ticked sheets, broke hearts,

rewrote the ancient songbooks.

 

And as they go

through closed minds’ closed door—

enough, no more.

It’s not so sweet

as once it was before.