“There was a City” - Justice Phillips

Описание: This piece was written at the end of 2024, and tells the story of Maria Wells childhood in Trieste. The scene is 1944, Trieste, Italy and Maria is 13. Maria wrote the poem that I used for the words for this piece.

Justice Phillips - guitar
Alex Lew - guitar
Andy Young - baritone
Audio/Video: Todd Waldron, Andy Stoltz, Reilly Curran

Bombs falling
Houses crumbling
Like a deck of cards
Pushed by an angry hand
Ruins in the street
A wall with a window
Still held on its frame
Like an eye looking into the void.
A curtain hanging
Torn and limp, a pattern of bright flowers
Still claiming
A last breath of life.
Unmoved the sun still shone
Through the dust, with an attempt
Of comfort and warmth.

A doll, sitting among the ruins
Where was the child who had rocked her?
A piano still standing
Against a wall with ripped wall paper
But no one to play
Too difficult to reach up there
High above the street
But no stairs.

Children playing among the ruins
Picking up bomb splinters
No one calling to them
No one aware of the danger
Dazed by the spectacle of the wounded city.

A woman, holding a child by his hand
Was murmuring to him “we go home now
Up on the hill
Away from this desolation”