Rushing to the Gig
Walking the dog, then rushing to rehearsal
in traffic slow as slugs, exhaust from cars
making him gag, the place as far as Mars,
to play Variations On a Theme of Purcell
might seem to some a big ordeal, for what?
It wouldn’t have been so terrible had he
made sure to read the call sheet. For you see,
after he got through walking the small mutt,
he took him home, then headed for a city
which wasn’t where the orchestra was meeting.
When he realized, his brain cells started beating
him up. But it was not such a great pity,
for then he raced and got to the right place.
It would have helped, though, to have brought his bass.
Martin Elster is a composer and serves as percussionist for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. His poems have appeared in journals including The Centrifugal Eye, The Chimaera, Lucid Rhythms, Mindflights, and Scarlet Literary Magazine, and in the anthologies Taking Turns: Sonnets from Eratosphere, The 2012 Rhysling Anthology, New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan, and Poe Little Thing.