Back up,
rock a little,
turn a foot to the music,
turn an ear to the ground,
turn around and see the behind,
turn around the rock, rock
a little more,

how long has it been
since you turned to rock a little
or a lot, backed up into 
rocking, one foot to the drums,
one foot to the bass,
hips to the drums, arms 
to the horns, eyes on the
prize, ears to the moment,
back it up back it up
back
it
up,

just a little, enough,
there, right there, 
rock that, a little bit harder now,
hold it, a little bit longer now;
now ease on back away from that beat,
getting Joe Tex on me now,
don’t get ahead of yourself,
ear to the ground,
foot to the beat,
mouth to God’s ear,
hum to the angel,
shout through the devil,
getting Jerry Lee Lewis
on me now, 

the Gospel as done by Hell’s chorus,

sing me up,
rock back into
the mouth to God’s ear,
black cavern with the light inside,
get lost in there, back it up,
lost nightclub, blacklight cavern
with the neon outside,
the flyspecked windows, the 
beer signs, 
getting George Jones on me now,
late for every gig, unfaithful
to everything but the music,
getting Buddy Rich on me now, 
rock a little more dominator,
your mouth to her ear, his ear,
getting all up in the reason beat came to be,
getting Brenda Lee on me now
with a broomstick temple censer going on ahead
while you rock behind, rock a little more headlong
into Saturday Night And Sunday Morning,

and damn, it surely has been a while.

the hands 
are the instrument,

are the guitar,
as the lungs and lips

are the horn, as the heart
is the drum and

the teeth are the keys and
the core equivalent is

the dark bass.
as is the gut the woodwind,

as is the voice
a wingless angel, seeking.

how is this confusion?
how is this not the greatest clarity.  

how true is the nature of music
that it cannot be better said than this

except as music.
except as itself alone.

are best grooved to
while you sit
on the front lawn
in your kiddie pool

while cars pass by
blasting them
from open windows
every ten minutes
for two seconds 
as they pass

or while the neighbor
trims hedges with a radio
on somewhere 
maybe from the kitchen
or set out on the porch
with the cord stretched
all the way from inside

while your fat ass is shaking 
in two inches of water
your bald head is bobbing
in two inches of sweat
you look like a cautionary ad
for heat stroke and the danger
of summer hits

some of which
will never be heard again
BUT

summer is best grooved to
with them
in fact summer needs them
like you need a tallboy
while you groove
sitting ridiculous and cool
in that kiddie pool
all season long

it never held tune
it never sounded great

it broke
again and again

i would toss it then
fish it out

tighten the bolts on the neck
restring it

it was blue and chipped black
an outrage to be posed with

when I was fifteen that
was all that mattered

it got me close enough
to close enough

to rock and roll
for the first time

Mike’s banging the strings right now
and certainly getting some original noises
out of that ancient, worn out,
catalog-origin, shitbox
frail-necked banjo.

Many marvelous errors are being made
while his hands walk toward
the transcendental possibilty
of the greatest song ever, 
and thus we are at
his mercy, at the edge
of awful and awesome
which by all accounts
is where we ought to be tonight:
wrong or almost wrong, often;
but focused entirely upon those moments
when someone pushes beyond the
best possible rightness.  

Mike may not get there tonight or ever
but we can see it from here
every time he plays with his eyes closed
and the odd chord falls off the banjo
into the room as perfectly as a little bird
spotted singing in a bush on a river bank
in the moonlight of our grandparents’ courting
long, long ago.

I remember seeing that
for the first time
on the back of a hand
at a show 

and smelling
the tired fire scent
of obsolescence 
wafting by

I knew the music
would survive the symbol
but it would take a while
before it shook free

of fashion
anti-fashion
fascism
and other labels 

The amplifiers are suspicious
of the rest of the equipment.

The guitars and drums and the bass
aren’t all that keen on the keyboards
but they all agree on what insufferable
dicks the microphones and PA are;
it’s gonna take brawn and art
to keep their war from being fought. 

It’s gonna take a bunch of humans 
wrestling them all into a surly truce
to get them to scream rock and roll
in rough, raw parity with one another.

a descending series of chords
a chorus shouting “hoo”
a man speaking in rhythm
rhyming a bit
a touch of sing song

a target
hit repeatedly

it’s working
early in the morning
for me as a listener

this atmosphere where

all your secrets stay safe
all your liars will lay
all your stories are stains
on that mattress

I’m crying
in bed

how much do I like that guitar
I ask myself
I like it fine

how much do I want it to be
guitar and rhyme and not meaning
that’s getting to me

I like distance

I like a target
hit repeatedly
from a distance

this is working
I declare it
a good song
a target struck again and again

I swear I’m not listening to the words

— italicized lyrics from “Mattress,” by Atmosphere; from the album “Sad Clown, Bad Summer”
(listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRcLFA0wW80)

In Sweden, extreme bands
thrash like icy schoolkids.

In Brazil, there are bands
who root themselves in pounding and scream.

In India, happy are bands who know
that all kinds of heads are made for banging.

In the United States there’s one band
for every market in every loud box.

In metal there is a noisy truth
which crosses a border

on its hands and knees
when necessary

but which always
stands up by stage time. 

Glorious here, even as the noise
has fallen silent.  Silent glory as
the musician dies.  In his wake
or her wake — glory being no disrespecter
of any people, any persons,
all are lit evenly and well by it.

If we never hear the musician
again, the music still lives.  Lives
in the mouth of another, all our ears,
and the hands of the bearers — living being
no exclusionary state, no prison
for the art it engenders.

Glorious, living music here, though right now
no one hears.  Hear that? No music now,
but the absence that demands it.  No filler,
no stuffing, nothing just to add shape — the missing noise
was and is perfectly shaped already if it indeed arrives.
The artist is not the art.  Sing for that glorious truth.