To Music

Only the young can wholeheartedly love ancient music.
It is fancy-dress, sound pared to its bones
As if the naughty flesh were simply the prop
for the idea of fabulous costumes, or sackcloth and ashes
Such as we never dream of today.
                                                                        Knives flash
Among brocades or muskets make rude noises;
Perhaps even peasants thump out obvious rhythms –
It’s all predictable but safely contained
In our superior sense of what might be.
We live in a world of synthetic synthesised sound
All blurred into our ears as if we had some say in it,
The manipulators nod and we are nodding too –
It’s no surprise but it’s not much enterprise either.