Monday, May 2, 2011

In Stereo

(based on suggestions from @greenspace01, @1000yearsago, and @matchtrick)


Not enough music is carried

at shoulder height any more.

We annoy each other politely

with polyps tucked out of phase

Tiny boom-boxes secreted

about our person like

Potter in the broom cupboard,

voice coils and cones replaced

with expanding foam plugs.


Speakers used to manifest as fashion

A parrot for a sound-pirate

blaring like a million fire engines

chasing ten million ambulances

through a war zone. It squawked:

the funk soul brother was coming.

Right about now. Check it out.

It made the empty air bleed.

I’m not saying it was pleasant.


Played at a volume that squeezed

your vagus nerve in a group hug.

Vital fluids braked with a screech,

the bottom dropped out of the world

like a javelin broom handle.

A transient response wrote

beats on the wall of your skin.

It was unapologetic, it had balls.

That’s all I’m saying.

_________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from three peeps:

  • @greenspace01: “Boom-boxes, broom cupboards and group hugs”
  • @1000yearsago: “expanding foam”
  • @matchtrick: “If there’s a chance you could squeeze DM’s take on Fat Boy Slim into a future poem, you’d be doing me a favour.”

Big stereos were awesome. They annoyed people without apology, not in the tinny-music-that-you-pretend-other-people-can't-hear-that-bleeds-out-of-crappy-earbuds.

This is all very 'back in the day' of me. But boom-boxes on shoulders were a statement. They said: "I don't care if you don't like my music. Complain and I'll cut you." Yeah.

The full Dylan Moran take on Funk Soul Brother is here.

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