Vivisection

Keep thinking
of soundtracks….
names, dates.
Places.

The bridge over the Ace Glass parking lot
is where I learned the meaning of the word
“vivsection.”  There was no
precipitating incident:
I just wanted to know what the word meant.
The car radio was playing bright pop
and I was seven.

There are roads in New Mexico
that will always sound like
Garth Brooks when I drive them.

Keep thinking, pushing…

the blister of chord melody
moves under my finger
in Amherst; punk newborn,
a straight razor cutting me
on the Bowery, every time; it is
Ace Glass all over again.

Push on the scar.
Listen to it, how the skin
dents as if it were under
Max Roach’s loving punishment.

To summer sex I say
Keith Jarrett, to winter sex I say
blue light cafe, to failure I say
there is a nameless noise band
somewhere.

Nostalgia is unnecessary
as nothing feels old…under my finger
the eardrum, the active, the real.

Keep it…

Keep Glenn Gould, the details
perfected, the summary.  This is
as silent as I ever get.  This is a bridge
of wood over a railroad track,
a boy crying under the foundations,
and the train so far off yet, fifty five
minutes before it arrives.  I hear the piano
as the rain of blows fades to a murmur…

I am cut open.

I hear a word for this.