It’s hard to hear the words
that come out of mouths
because my eardrum is infiltrated by the hums
so various and ubiquitous on airborne airplanes,
but in my state of Waking Sleep
I could’ve sworn I heard a voice say:
“Jimi Hendrix”
and I suppose they were speaking of
my CD collection traveling by my side at my feet
which happens to include no less than 12
of the man’s finest CD’s,
and I hear a voice saying,
“well let me make a recommendation to you,
a band called Turnover Roundabout,
it’s music with great poetry”
and something made me think
that tattoo man was saying this
to Brody
and that I might enjoy
partaking in
whatever musical conversation this might turn out to be
so I try to pick my head up
but I can’t
it’s locked down
it’s like I’m drowning
it’s like suction
inversion
it’s like I’m a goose stuck in a bottle
n I can’t cut loose
it’s like I’m going down
inside out
drowning in the depths of my soul
trapped in that bubble
thought I was in trouble
Lend me a hand!
I need to pop out
and go back to hopping through dry reality
I need to smack somebody so they pick me up,
take me out,
save my livelihood,
but my arms are stuck like mud
I need to groan so somebody knows I’m drowning
but I choke my jaws lock down on my tongue
my brain pitches
screaming symphonies,
decibel shrieks,
sonic sound waves,
through all neurons in my brain
and I jolt up to
Brody’s quiet reading,
conversing only with the words on them pages
Tattoo Man’s sitting in a separate row
hands folded round an airplane pillow in his lap
and what I was hearing
in my unreliable sleep
was a pretentious businessman
wearing a suit I can’t see in the row front of me
he’s rolling drowsily on about something or another,
of no interest or significance,
so I stretch my arms my chest
unleash a furious yawn
like all I ever saw manly lions do at the Bronx zoo
I fish out my discman
cruise into some Hendrix to groove to
and with a Band of Gypsies
I roll into Atlanta.