Lay for the Day29th March

1795: Ludwig van Beethoven gives his first concert in Vienna, a little over two years after moving to the city. Born in Bonn in 1770, he had made his public debut as a musician at the age of eight, in Cologne.

1827: Beethoven is buried in Vienna. He was 56 years old.

Composure: an Ode

His face is covered in calluses. His brow is deafened with hair like a rock in the sea. His eyes open their feeding fringes on a salty light, and his ears are full of mussels. His mind, too, works slowly in its opaline casing like a mollusc. With the powerful mandibles of the sea-hyena he splinters his prototype fortepianos, cracking open the naturals for their marrow, licking his lips over lickerish flats and sharps. A sonata for snapped strings proves taxing. By the time he scratches the final flourish beneath the dedication to his married second cousin, the heap of violins behind his chair prevents his loyal little housemaid dusting the line of little royal figurines sheÕd collected on his derelict harpsichord. HeÕs lowered down in the end at the end of a chain, in a shroud with wraparound sleeves. ItÕs years before his time and the moon is empty. The monumental marble heÕd left unfinished, Multiple Collision, is placed on the tomb, just to be sure.

John Gibbens, from Makings ’84–’88

The Lay Reader: an archive of the poetic calendar