Practice

A dank, dark basement entered cautiously from the rear.    The first thing you saw were bass cabinets, Their enormous backs an unmovable blackness guarding The door.    The first thing you heard was feedback and sometimes Anthony Ross, our manager's kid brother, Snare and pedal-less, pretending to kick.    The floor was worried with slithering cords, Live wires that lifted and looped like vines of verse. The cold brick walls were covered with noise And, like it or not, several mouth-orange cardboard posters —those triflin', Day-Glo ones that resemble sores When the lights are ON, and sores When they are OFF.    The air was thick with Chinese take-out, reverb, The young girls on us, and designer cologne.    Our roadies recorded and studied us, just in case.    A microphone slept like an orphan on a dirty pillow    At the bottom of the bass drum's navel-less,    Belly-impersonating, soul-shaped O.    Skin Tight disciplined the congas for not disciplining the bongos And (sho' you righhht) for not listening.    Bbbridoomp, bbridoomp, bridimp boomp.    Floor tom. Two-faced cymbals. A hint of high-hat. Sticks.    Our drummer sat facing all of this, caged, while the entire Frontline (including Karen, our female vocalist) worked out, Breathing and counting and steppingLike odd numbers.    Big Earl and Scarecrow stood behind their guitars the same way The marines at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Stood behind rifles.    The timbales and rototoms, side-by-side, were Like a finish line of chrome, the bridge (each And every other groove) a horn's valved prose Asked for, asked for, asked for.