In the Groove

I used to listen to records in the dark

With big headphones it was like dying

To float ten feet above the bed, suspended

Watching myself climb to a soft delicate spot

Inside.

I always preferred guitars over piano, Elvis over Gershwin

But also loved piano more than most anything.

Music is just space and time

I struggled with both

wanted it all, like swallowing all of the

Night air when only sips would do.

Tom Waits and Hendrix would be odd brothers,

But I imagine them on shared luminescent wings

At the crossroads scratching out meaning --

All the music ever made contained in one burning point

A swarm of flickering light. screaming --

fireflies marking space

Those little plastic grooves poked to make sound

are like the days we have

the heart a furnace, music/life warm

Exploding in just that moment,

Inside small bumps and ridges

until that big slippery slope where the needle

skates quickly towards the

lifeless core --

the hole that keeps it all together

and all sound comes to an end.