A Brass Quartet Plays Albert Ayler In The Park

These horns,
my God,
these horns.  

Almost as if the air itself
was hooked up to a distortion pedal,
but that’s not possible.  It’s 
the players themselves
who must be bending the air itself
into such rough shapes, scraping it and
abrading it until there are surfaces
grit can stick to.  

Warning: our ears
will fill with sand to the rims
if we listen.  Our ears will get filthy
with that if we don’t move
from this spot where you appear to be rooted

under the fat leafed maple,
listening to this scabby racket
as if it were a gospel congregation.
My God, man, they’re bending the very air!
How you can still be breathing it
without warping, without changing,
I do not know.  

Come away from here with me —
don’t just stand there
while music is being torn up like that.
I wouldn’t call it a sin,
but I wouldn’t call it harmless either.