Walk, Don’t Run, Rebel Rouser

Grappled all night
with nostalgia
until I was too tired
to get away,
so I called out

radio, help:

play “Walk, Don’t Run.”
Play “Rebel Rouser’ ”
or “Pipeline.”  

Songs of movement,
no lyric clutter, good beat
plus a pure skin-crawling sense
that what once was
must still be out there;
that’s what I need to have.

I don’t much care
for the music of my youth.
It was mostly lies.
I don’t love it much unless
I need to grow teeth
and gnaw my leg off
to escape
from some bloody crush
of the jaws of time,
and it hurts,
it hurts
but it’s sometimes
is all that there is 
so when it happens

Telstar me,
Sleepwalk me,
Rumble me,
Wipeout me;

my longing for those songs
means I’m trapped and they
are the only way out.