poem - "At the Jukebox Emporium"

 

At the Jukebox Emporium

Like gourds around an irrigation ditch

jukeboxes line the showroom perimeter

shine in chrome and crimson

with neon light outlines

all playing different songs at once

a jumble of goodtime splayed intensity

 

I walk from one to the next, smiling

I must have died and gone to juke box heaven

I think.  Elysian fields of jukeboxes.

Gradually the music dies away till just one song stays

then fades into funeral home silence

 

Let’s try something, put Jimi Hendrix up on ten boxes

synchronized psychedelic soul

We spread out to ten boxes on three sides and all push A-8

as quickly as we can

and stand expectantly, hands out to balance

 

Slightly out of phase, “Up From the Skies” plays:

 

I I j-just c-came d-down t-talk t-to y-you

I I w-won’t d-do y-you n-no h-harm

 

And the wah-wahs wha a little too much

like growing corn sped up on film

and tractor noise crisscrossed by sun

 

I sway and laugh in a infinidibulum of cracked splendor

But then we are shown the door by Big Al, who seems angry

and on the desert pavement again

we guffaw uncontrollably

in echoes of human jukebox laughter