Those opening bars of his Fifth Symphony still thrill me as they did when I was fourteen.

How radical they must have sounded to his first audience, the brisk few chords and then: that astonishing silence. Then he does it all again.

In writing it is good to enjoy space between words - a little hiatus of a comma or a dramatic pause of the colon, differing lengths of lines, the weight and feel of syllables are all tools we can use as we hone our craft.

Here are some lines which have amused me to play with for a few years. It is probably not a finished product I think originally I was aiming for a seventeen syllable verse like haiku ...

I was glad to hear

that you refused to doff your cap

to any aristocrat.

Indeed, you made them

step

completely off the pathway

and

after that:

you spat.