Dead Men Don't Talk

Dead
men
don't talk.
Even archbishops.
It is pointless swearing at them
and pretty dumb when they've been dead for two hundred years.
Forgive me father for I have sinned, not just in a holy place, but a cathedral.
The outrage committed on a day trip to Salzburg
in the crypt where archbishops lie,
not six feet under,
cupboarded
coffins
in
walls.

I
don't
need him
Let him go
.
So Wolfgang was sacked.
We didn't need you, Archbishop.
My whispered hiss at his grave, face to face, face to skull.
OK, I confess, I have sinned by insulting you, dead cardinal-prince-archbishop.
Any enemy of Mozart's my enemy too. Hieronymus Colloredo,
please don't absolve me
I'm guilty,
as charged
and
glad.

Count Hieronymus von Colloredo (1732-1812) was the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg. He employed the
young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) as his concertmaster, but the relationship was a fiery one
and the prince-archbishop sacked the 21 year-old composer after a heated argument.