The kings of backgammon, descendants of
Bulgarian kings and Austro-Hungarian princes
Russian counts and countesses, Czech barons
Your ancestors have seen better days.
They accepted their fate as the natural state of affairs
And when it turned out to be just a fickle fortune
They had the nurture and tact not to show their shock,
Though usually such a ruthless discovery crushes many.
Now, as you spend your days playing backgammon in smoky cafes
You rarely remember the fragments of days gone by.
You've learnt to rejoice in trifling victories, and not to be disheartened by losses.
The descendants of exiled kings and ruined nobles
They organise championships of sad joy
The winner owes a round of beer for everyone.
The new Russian opposition makes the right acquaintances
Just like the old one did a hundred years ago
And in their later years, they all convert to Catholicism
Since Orthodox churches don't have pews
At least with Catholics you can doze off unnoticed
With a sniff of incense through the candle light.
Had Joseph Haydn
Thought that a French «poet»
Would listen to his symphony number 7,
In a car facing a lake,
In July 2023?
The answer is NO,
Had Joseph Haydn
Thought,
That his music would be heard
By so many people
On records or CDs?
The answer is NO.
Would Joseph Haydn
Have imagined
That an Austro Hungarian orchestra
Would play his music in Los Angeles,
Play For quiet melomanes?
The answer is NO.
Basically, a genius
Don’t think he’ll change the world,
Or that it will change people’s lives,
He has no idea he’s a genius
And that time will prove him right.
(At the remote Mayerling hunting lodge,
on January 30, 1889, two young people’s
lives were extinguished. Crown Prince
Rudolf, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
and his young lover, Countess Mary Vetsera,
died in circumstances which have never been
properly explained.)
The Tragedy of Mayerling
In January, eighteen eighty-nine,
disaster struck the Austrian court, and since
that day, we've wondered how the handsome prince
(one Rudolf) and his teenage concubine
came both to die. A mystery which taxes
the best of Europe's brains is long past solving.
A story of illicit love, involving
the need to smash down bedroom doors with axes
will always fascinate. The girl was found
in bed, quite dead. Prince Rudolf at her side
was sitting in a chair. It seems he died
of gunshot wounds. Blood - clotted, matted, browned
- extended its congealing cataract
down to the floor. Perhaps a suicide pact?
Inspired by the Bridal painting of the Empress Elisabeth of the 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire -
Elegance, strength as elegance,
elegance of spirit personified as if this extraordinary elegance
was born to be, beyond the devestation of mortals,
so far outside the boundries of the base & banal ravishings
prevelant within peoples' passions and purposes,
escaping expectations of equality,
graciousness was alive within her
like a landscape loved & leavened by a monogamous moonlight,
ebony overcome by the invigoration of ivory,
realising that genuine grace is a monument
of courage confronting chaos, crystallised composure,
she being a template and temple for hopefuls,
in all my experience I have witnessed no woman more ready for power,
more savoring for sacrafice, more able to abate avarice & acrimony,
Elisabeth, the emerald of an Empire,
Mother to minions, mistress of the misery & magnificence of the multitudes,
Master of the stout & savant,
such precocious puissance of personality, regal resilience,
my imagination renders eagles delivering sustenance to her,
bees bringing heavenscent -
J.A.B.