Ghost in the Machine

"But where is the university?" Gilbert Ryle

Somewhere sounds of a violin inside
an empty house the dead still live within:
it leads a symphony of silence for a bride.
Somewhere sounds of a violin

- a ghostly palimpsest of Menuhin
which cures her heart in love's formaldehyde;
a wax recording turning round a mannequin

whose dreams still labour in infanticide.
Where recollection ends, nightmares begin;
so softly fall the almond tears of cyanide;
somewhere: sounds of a violin.

Nigel Holt

If you've any comment on this poem, Nigel Holt would be pleased to hear from you.