Elephants And Guitars

Look at all the sleeping elephants in this room!

Everyone knows they are there.
You can’t miss them,
can’t move around and find a comfortable place
to sit.

They stink, they snore,
and those infernal trunks
keep dream-slipping
into our pockets and pants.

The problem, of course,
is that everyone here is practicing
their lead guitar skills.  Everyone
wants to be Hendrix, rip and tear
the sky, fly recklessly up and down
their necks with the amps turned
all the way up.  You don’t have to listen
to anyone, not even the elephants,
if you play lead guitar.

We line the limited wall space with our eyes closed
and tolerate the elephants’ intrusion
while we shred and never hear a thing.
Superstars, all of us.  And when the beasts
rise, start to rocking our tunes, tear shit up,

we’ll blame the bass players,
the drummers, the rhythm sections,
the vocalists who got on the nerves
of the sleeping giants and made them angry;
not us and our Godlike soloing and screaming,
ego stroke pick rakes, hammer ons, pull offs,
dive bombs, distortion,

our eyes closed, our noses in the air,
our backs against the smashed walls.