listening to music...

(this "poem" is the result of a very interesting experience i had the other night. I was sitting in an appartment with some guys in a band, who just started picking up their guitars, pedal boards, and keyboard/synthesizer, to jam. Sitting on the couch, the musical energy was palpable. I dug out my journal and raced to jot down these lines while they were all playing, wordlessly. It was a creative surge that is rare for me, in the company of others, much less in a kind of collaboration with other "art"...)

"a woman-instrument"

he told me once
that his bass
was sexed like a woman-
all sleek hair,
satin fingers,
concave back
and graceful neck
with a hollow
where her voice
laughed out
melodies

the woman
moved with long strong fingers
with strangled hair
and creased cloth
pouring over top
of her slender frame

with the calloused, scratched
touch, she sings,
with the animal smell
of a man,
or so many men.
all of them converging
in one fountain head
all of them surging
with dark hair
that blends with night sky

and long fingers
and varying degrees
of attentiveness or indifference
and always
the bass-girl
finds herself reconcilled to a corner
to a station between
wall and books
where she starts again

to glitter
beneath the dust

she catches light upon her strings
and the men circle
their fingers hungry
and the picks pull
at her taughtness,
smoothness--

can you hear her music
play
again?