THE KENSINGTON BEAT

 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.