The Sound

Sometimes I try to bear the ambient experience of day
without the little aural Hansel/Gretel crumbs
I strew ahead, behind that help me to imagine I might
find my way – Mozart on the radio or Joni Mitchell’s
recent odd low alto or selected TV reruns: Star Trek: Voyager
and CSI – or dvds of Judy Garland television shows
or even lately the worn alien incursion of some recently
acquired porn – but sometimes I turn off this fornicating
soft-rock symphony of murderers and astronauts

and men-that-got-away and see what might be going on
beyond the sway of their embroidered influence. I wish
that I could say that the discovery awaiting me was worthy
of remark: perhaps it is – in some way – as when cars
are parked they arguably lead a vacancy of life so private
it defies elaboration – I suppose that something in the mild
mesh of indiscriminate Manhattan air – trickles of the wind
and buses – may indeed have meditative force to lead
to some uncanny entry to some hidden lair: perhaps

a cloud has loudness somehow, somewhere: but I couldn’t
bear it for too long and now am listening (the porn had
long before completed its raw catalytic work: television
reruns are an hour away) to Joni Mitchell singing “Shine” –
her sixty-four year old tobacco-ridden voice alluring –
with the ground bass of a modal melody – tiny blues
transition – sweet – between repeating harmonies –
her syllables confound except as sound, and only sound,
the only thing that matters is the sound, the sound.

= = = = = = =

written while listening to Joni Mitchell’s “Shine” (suggestion:
just listen to it: the youtube visuals are, to me anyway, intrusive) –

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNflavqCmEc