poem – Page 25 – The BeZine

Post-Punk

Allow the nuanced rose
to grow behind your face.
Or somewhere in Europe.

Walk up to the orchestra
pit and declare,
I found that essence rare.

Johnny Yip lets Johnny Yen
carry him over the threshold
and name the electric poodle.

It’s nice to pick someone
else’s scab for a change.
Make small talk with the fellas

as they tend their garden.
Praise Berlin and its underground.
Praise the word of mouth.

Praise the loud, distorted
announcement that your pictures
are ready to pick up at the kiosk.

Used Records

The last thing that she said to me
was keep yourself alive
she’d been a fan of Mercury
May and those two other guys

whose names I can’t remember
I walk around downtown
and the city feels like one gigantic
vinyl record store

tonight the music left to us
and trapped inside those discs
spirals toward an emptiness
that once had purpose.

Under a rainbow. Somewhere.

look at the sky
it’s going to rain
so my teacher
taught us the -ing form

all things passing by
described
as a blue cloud
as a rainy day
as our eyes looking up

we never saw a rainbow
together

but we had sex
during a storm
wind blowing out of the window

but we chatted lying
on a soaked meadow
birds trying to speak from branch to branch

but we called each other at the phone
in a wet vernal evening
words about a rainbow we saw from our different cities

I think I know where the golden pot
myths talked about
is hidden
but I don’t care to search it

because it is somewhere now
because we are now somewhere
under a rainbow

First Time

First Time
a friend over at his place
put headphones over
my ears because it
was the seventies
and I was eleven
and never worn them before.

The rich friend says “Listen,”
as he puts the black mufflers
over my ears,
the thump, thump, thump,
the voices without shortwave
crackle or click of scratches,

and now
in the next century
a kind of Dark Side
Of the Moon everywhere,
giant footfalls as if I’m the shrinking
man, the scratch of flies feet,
high heels in the next street,
Earth moving at 140 miles an hour
beneath my feet

because my ear operation worked.

Bodhrán

Bubbling and breaking
Trouble in bass bone
Trouble in babble
Irish rabble round hub
And nub of tub
Of bars dribble

Then lug snug
Rhythm round rug
Where couples rumble
A stone jig
To dumb bell
Troubling skin
Tight on rum drum

(previously appeared in Picaroon’s “Troubadour” anthology)

When I Used to Play.

Nights stretched to morning.
Muscles ached from hauling gear,
and set-ups:
Conga’s, bongo’s, granite blocks, chimes.
Hung and racked.
A full traps case: Guero, rattles, rain-stick,
cabasa.
Noises hidden till hands’ contact.
Mics rigged—one for skins, another ambient,
that took each whistle, whisper,
snick, thrum and clack.
Then the ubiquitous wait.
To absorb the room. Slide into the zone,
head-prep, sound-check.
Each instrument tested,
as tech-man spidered over his desk,
tweaked risers, treble, bass, EQ.
Mixed like a chef.
My sounds glided round, through.
Seasoned judiciously as salt.
The warm wash of it rolled back.
Skins sang, belled and bellowed.
hands and wrists tingled.
Excitement hummed, visceral, deep.
Then the eye-catch, knowing grab
of notes as we painted the tune,
onto the air. Tight, perfect, seamless.
Individual skill
honed to a collective golden whole.
Watching faces smiled.
Applause washed the finale.
Drew us toward the take-down.
A gritty-eyed struggle to stay awake,
in a van in early dawn.

Beginners Night.

A borrowed costume,
dampening with nerve-sweat.
A delicate, pretty concoction.
Breath-tight top, frilled skirt,
red, sequinned seams.
A skaters bum-freezer,
stretched in places
that fit another’s curves.
For tonight, it was hers.
Backstage, The Hollies waited.
The warm-up,
Go-Go girls of La Dolce Vita,
tasked with shaping the mood.
Their cue came. They stepped.
Blinded by the gobo, bathed by gells,
pink, blue, peach, gold.
Chests ached from bass resonance,
monitors thundering foldback.
Synchronised routine
smoothed them across the stage.
Limbs moved ;sex-on legs languor
vampy come-to-bed motion.
Hearts pounded, high kicks and sass.
All was music, dry ice, strobes.
Practised routine
spilled from limbs and feet.
Two and half minutes of inhibition.
A show for the public.
Bow taken, breath regained
they brushed damp hair,
told the new girl
She did ok.

Applause.

Music ceases.
Only a string or skin trembles.
Hands tingle, sweat prickles
as minds loosen tendrils sewn
through the symbiosis of playing.
Slow seconds pass.
Breath stuffs itself back
into tight spaces of lungs.
Silence is deep.
A temporary empty world
where we are alone,
pinned under light.
Then it begins.
Slow, like the beginning of rain,
that increases and swells,
subtle as flowing water.
Hands collide. Throats roar.
Whistles slice warm air.
People stand arms high,
as if their appreciation might rise,
swell to a rolling wave
that heaves toward and over us.
We are lifted to a plateau
of euphoria, joy, satisfaction.
We take our bow, return.
Leave, wired and content.

For Gilly Dangerous

I remember her arse.

The strut, stalk, bounce,

as I played percussion behind her.

Watched her stomp and prance,

as she held the room.

Purred, tore lyrics from her throat

as if her heart was being rent

from her body.

She fronted that band

like a boxer fronts his opponent.

Staked her claim,

then led through pain, tenderness,

to a great well of feeling.

Framed by lyrics,

her soul was transparent.

Brimmed with agony, melancholy,

soft sweet joy, all the angst

of a broken heart.

She left us early.
Another soul full of talent and torment

who found reality unkind

and rooms chilled

without a spotlight’s nourishing sun.

Now time cannot spoil,

nor rub away her spark.

Will not lay more pain upon her.

Somewhere, her voice is heard.

The arse defiantly shimmying

across a celestial stage.

Gilly was lead vocalist for the Band The Dangerous Sisters.

Music Crashing

The bass of music came crashing,
lyrics grabbing on to my soul.
To my ears the speakers bashing,
as the rhythm grabs a hold.
Falling for a tune, like love,
crashing down in desperation to feel.
Every note sings like a dove;
Making all my emotions become real.
When music really hits, I feel.

Music Within

Life without music would be like a guitar without strings, a piano without keys, a cello without a bow, and a sax without a reed.
Music is my religion, lyrics preach to my heart in need.
It eases my soul when I’m falling apart.
The rhythm of the music is like the beat of my heart.
The melody sings to my soul, and melts my troubles away.
Drums move my feet, when the horns hit it makes me sway.
Guitars can electrify me to life, or simply sing me a lullaby.
Piano notes dance on me, like the wings of a butterfly.
The lick of the bass it goes straight to my hips.
Words of the lyrics sing of all my relationships.
There’s a tempo to match my every mood,
when I’m feeling happy, sad, or angry and rude.
Music has been faithful and never failed me.
It offers a love that sets me free.
So many times it’s eased my mind.
Music’s my friend who has always been kind.
Some people say music is a sin.
Though even in silence I have music within.

Ode to Nina Simone

Transforming us with blues, boogie-woogie,
using training in classics to quash rage,
she dug into our souls, tore open hearts, exposed our psyche.
Before King’s dream, she mounted battles onstage
from Harlem to Carnegie, leaving beloved Bach behind,
she battered walls of injustice, rattled abusers’ cages, yet
allowed herself to be battered, her sanity strewn.
Nina, a Harlem Renaissance soul out of time,
whose good intentions drown in madness and regret,
infused righteous power into every tune.

On Modest Mussourgsky’s “Bydlo”

A shape appears
and is gone,
comes into view,
disappears, until,
cresting the hill,
the spot
blotting the sun,
a cartload of hay,
takes shape.

Emerging,
the wagon,
oxen-drawn, a juggernaut pulled
by two thousand pounds,
rolls between fields–
grinding dirt,
crushing stones.

Sweating flanks
of coarse,
matted hair
cause slow,
rhythmic hammering,
dull thunder
as hooves pound earth.
The ground moves
to the sound
of these hardened
timpani.

Beast and wagon pass,
processional,
as if solemn,
and then recede
slowly
out of sight.

A wake is left–
strong pungent odor
of musk
mixed

with the sweet sharpness
of the cut stalks
being carried
to the village beyond.

La Rosa & El Dragon (impressions from the music of “Pan’s Labyrinth”

Terror rarely comes in thunder,
preferring a sinister waltz
of seduction, the single notes
of a piano, Bartok-like,
accompany the spiral stairs
winding down into the maze, echoed

by hammer-struck wire blossoming
out into chorus. Then, a voice
like violin strings descends in pitch,
looping in carefully placed steps
of a few seemingly random notes,
walking up scales and back.

This dance of tympani and plants
follows the labyrinth as wind
hums ethereal as an oboe
exhaling. A deep drop in tone,
a bassoon, then, metallic bones
clash in clanging vibrations

while strokes of plucked harp strings,
the heartbeat, first, steady, then slowing
to a perfect if ignoble end.
Ofelia, hearing the lullaby,
rests to find the peace of mind
found in the art of dying.

“Zooz’s Brasshouse” Busking

Three spheres of instrument—percussion, sax,
and trumpet: brass, reed, and skin—become
a discussion of brash banging fun.

The three surround a pail, collecting
donations for their beating counterpoint,
a concerto akin to some surreal

coo-coo clock. The day’s audience gathers:
waiting commuters, tourists, regulars,
a few hipsters. The bucket fills, singles

and fives mostly, some tens, one guy stirs
a twenty. Two skinny Santas dance
into view, a yuletide boogie. The music

shrieks, shocks, squeals, and squawks, yet there’s fluid
motion in the high-stepping legs, the feet
that slide, circling Union Square platform

in waves that weave seductive, as these three
dance and create a wake in a shape
that’d break the back of a snake.

Blakeson

Eubie did it better than anyone—
not just music but life as well. Sneaking
off at thirteen, already pro,
playing at a Baltimore brothel,

he filled time for men lounging on couches,
pulling slugs of whiskey from flasks, waiting
for the girl of—if not their dreams—at least
their choice that evening. Then, people hummed

his show tunes, but his true calling being
the Rachmaninoff of Ragtime.
Long fingers, doing what few can hope to,
created perfect stops, gaps leading to

rolling trills, rollicking dances on black
keys running along accidentals
of sharps and flats. Later, I watched him play
on that Manhattan stage, as Alberta Hunter

sang—both seeming unaware of the crowd
gathered about them— he having a year
for each key of his instrument; she 80,
near two centuries of experience. I wasn’t

at a music hall that night. Instead,
I stood on the edge of Mt. Olympus, looking up,
getting a chance to eavesdrop on gods
of music as they played.

# Harmonic Chanson #

A chanson ,
A clinking harmonic tune is fluxing through my genie ,
Like a melodious chant of the monks in a cloister ,
Like a fluty ode of a shepherd in a green meadow ,
Like a rhythmic carol of a venerator in a church ,
It’s waving through the windy cascade ,
Ringing the bells of the churches and temples ,
Nodding the polite petunias,
Conquering the Thames and the Nile .

Dancing on the stages of the Eastern and Western Ghats ,
Kissing the bluish veil of the Nilgiri ,
It has adored my land ,
Bewitching the four
grooves of my heart ;
O -the melodious harmony !
How placid you are !
Capering from a clandestine place ,
Fluttering your wings like a migratory bird ,
Never leave me desolate ;
Lock me in your embrace
Alike folded feathers of a swan for her brood of ducklings ,
Plunge me into your gleeful high tide ,
Let me repose my eyes to an unknown galaxy beyond the Orion ,
Let me submerge into your authentic sustainability ,
Let me endue the star studded garment of the murky sky ,
Smearing the flood of the watery moonbeam ,
Let me fill my costrel -my pale bosom with your rich wine of musical justice ,
Until my last breath ,
Until the dernier particle of my entity resides on the argil ,
Of this fairy globe .

The Music of the Conch Shell

The conch sea shell is a reminder always
of where it is she really belongs

of small hands holding the beauty
of ocean waves within its’ confines
hugging her ear & she in awe and wonder

even now when she cradles it closely
and listens longingly and intently

she can see the waves building high
coming to crash along the sandy shore
where seabirds add calls to the score

to a music with a wondrous crescendo
the color of sea salt spraying her skin

the wind picking up the string section
with soprano highs & contralto lows
& a sky of variegated blues the backdrop

connecting the ocean stage to the horizon
unseeing of the stage hands hidden below

but bringing memories of dolphins dancing
upon the ocean stage & the magic of whale song
whose singing plays the melody all the while

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