If Only Mozart Could Cover it
I’m slid into the mouth of the beast
like a drawer in the morgue.
Is that my heart I hear?
Or the heart of an expensive hungry machine?
On my back, eyes masked, soft plugs squashed into ears,
I’m in a tiny tomb
with a headset piping in music of my choice.
Music that tries to trick me into thinking I’m someplace else.
But the Nachtmusik is too Kleine to hear
over sharp nails pounding the lid of this cold coffin.
A jackhammer shows up another another
a blight of them
each pitched higher louder louder
aggressively driving fistfuls of sound buffeting
breaking through soft folds of my brain
to slice microscopically thin sections.
A snare drum leads a plague of low flutes
in this grinding parade.
Pulsing perfectly in time pitched sounds bounce off
like ping pong balls
as the synthesized tempo prompts
twitching
but the more I move, the longer I’ll have to stay
in this living tube this submersible
this whale belly.
And now I’m inside the guts of a double bass
plucked notes glissando-ing,
in the center of a jazz combo,
surrounded by thrumming dissonant techno-disco.
At last, the finale. Masked ones glide me into open air.
I uncover ears and eyes, plunge into eloquent silence.
Next time, I’ll choose Mahler
or Sousa.