Machine Head

On stage for the first time, me a bass guitar player
in our Head Down band, playing for the masses, teens,
groupies, tattooed young men, shirtless lads whooping
and hollering, gearing up for rock and roll and eyeing
females for eventual union of sorts.  Nervous me,
like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking
chairs, conditioned by heavy amps
decibel incredible. 

Oh the loud, oh the riot, the audience
in scream, an auditory froth like lager suds
or ocean shore white, the anticipation, me, a
hair-to-the-shoulders Peter Frampton wannabe
in tight jeans and black tee, pick placed forthright
in right hand to strum a riff, to add to this heavy
metal beat, to shuttlecock a cord or more for
virgin appearance proximate to tall and
shiny microphone. 

This is what we practiced for--those arduous
garage and basement sessions fretting until my
fingers bled, the neighbors calling the cops
ad nauseam, the spill of talent like a lake
in spring when snow is warmed
to leaving...

...but here I am like
Bob Seger turning the
page on stage once again,
almost in boredom he, but nay,
I shall not simply turn the page and
yawn, ‘cause this is new, like screwing
for the very first time, and any ennui is not
to be considered.  It comes easier now, amid 
the clamor, amid the deafening voice box booming
far beyond the Emmy clapping or the tintinnabulation
of any set of bells.  I am into it now, with ease I
slide, I feel alive, my instrument a writhing
tool to satisfy with manic rock, the stage
a lighted mistress.  How sweet this
consummation, as I arrive at every
smoke-on-the-water orgasm. 
I have come to play. 


40 Lines 
Writer’s Cramp
2-24-16