There are drum solos rumbling down the avenue
where storefront lights burn into the dark
and get diffuse in the
amber glare of bottles and rim shots clinking and reporting
the news of the night:
Yes, we have to go to work again on Monday,
only planets have converged,
lined up in a way that leaves my gravity and shoreline alone,
the highest satellite dish we see tonight
will still be there
in the morning with
birds sitting on them, tennis shoes hanging from them,
giving someone so many sharp moving pictures of
moronic diversions.
Everyone steps up and takes a solo on the melody that becomes the
tattoo on the big shoulder of the crowd that leans into the wall of sound that
each player powers their riffs against, yes, it’s dark outside, the streetlight cannot burn away the black or the mist that surrounds the glow,
I consider bills to pay, bills to pay,
your face smiling or looking down,
at that point when you think you’re alone,
whistling and singing
the trilling ends of
famous Hendrix riffs, gutter growl,
whammy bar tirade, ostinatos and legato salvo, tongue triple timing
imperfect harmony with sonic
bitch slap pick harmonic tooth grinding chop heaven,
screams go across the night, I think of you singing whole
sections of
Axis, Bold as Love
when I got home early years ago,
you had all the kitchen gadgets grinding, the stereo
blasting, you
had your voice unleashed in vowels and consonants
riffing in sustained syllabics that
kept away the lurking edge of the night
that would come over the horizon
and up the street
on tiny feet
and bring with it a wake of
wasted blackness that swallowed all
All there is left to do is sing
and consider bills to pay,
Warm nights and drum solos
from the back of the Kensington Club
where my brother plays
and demonstrates
the history of sticks
on drum heads, what the hands do when
getting busy is the business,
Everyone gets to take a solo,
to rail their music against the wall of sound,
the night abates; it gives up its claim
on your division of city street and passes you
as singing
to yourself burns a black smoke
and sparking fabric of sheer emotion
that life stories end up as notes on sheet music
in an arrangement that seems to give we room to
stretch and take our time, to talk to the ends of our existence
so far
and burnish the ends of
our trilling and thrilling cadenzas with a name
that announces itself as part of that
invisible “it”
that is the nature of the street, the kiss of the town you live in,
There are drums the spill out of the doors
and on the street
we go back to
in order to find other streets
to find our beds
before the sun rises over the
eastern mountains and chases the dark back to its recesses,
making this world safe for money.
But tonight, there are drums, a song,
step to the mike, take a solo,
it’s all yours
for 32 bars,
or sunrise.