The irony was that
I liked listening to music


strong


like coffee, black


volume up a notch or two
to catch my wandering mind and
make it stay
make it focus
lose myself in it
find myself in it


* * *


Where I lived, concerts were a rare thing
concerts by groups I liked
rarer still


When a group I liked came one spring evening
I went to see them, hear them


form the words with their mouths
form the notes with their fingers
form the night with their energy


The place was jammed and warmed up
The people were ready
I was ready


They took their places,
looking like they did on their album covers


and hit that first note


The volume jumped
from good loud to
marrow-sloshing LOUD


and the people jumped up as one
as if the electric guitars
were hard wired to their seats,
the current flowing straight on to their brains


And they were happy, as if
LOUD
was what they really came to feel
to inhale it
have it run full throttle through them


It was not my loud


but a LOUD that made
the harmony gasp
the rhyme spit and choke
the subtlety gurgle
the licks screech and moan


all drowned in the waves of
thumping, painful
LOUD


* * *


A while later,
when my marrow settled,
I listened again to the music
I had hoped to hear then,
but this time at my own loud


And it was still there
the lyrics, the rhyme, the voices, the licks
still good.


And so I revived the music
and so I undrowned the music


Yet even then, and even now
I still hear the near-drowning of that music



Harry W. Yeatts Jr.