THOM-THOM-THOM
steady, unrelenting from the car
beside me at the light.
And suddenly
I want to tell him about
Beethoven’s “Fifth” or
Glenn Gould’s “Goldberg”
that there are other beats
and rhythms than monotone,
other tones, sounds and voices
than THOM-THOM-THOM.
I recall Brubeck’s “Time Out”
with its various time signatures
and even the tempo shift in
“MacArthur Park”.
You can go faster or slower
than THOM-THOM-THOM
I want to say to him.
There are many myriad styles,
genres and voicings.
You can play cool, hot, hard,
and sweet, even acoustically,
or in analogue,
using natural sounds
with voices, instruments,
and no tech.
Why there are Bach’s organ solos,
Stan Getz’s sax,
Lenny Breau’s guitar,
Ravi Shankar’s sitar,
Ravel’s “Bolero”,
Tchaikovsky’s “1812”,
Satie’s “Gymnopedies”,
The Beatles experiments,
and Sinatra’s voice.
So many possibilities
so many sounds beyond your
deadening, primitive
THOM-THOM-THOM.
But the moment passes
and the light changes.
He leaves my notions and van
in the dust forever
and drives off
happily limited and very certain
with his meaningful
THOM-THOM-THOM.