I’m listening to something.
I don’t know what it’s called but it’s Chopin.
It’s something Alexa pulled
from the high capacity byte magazine
of her small black canister
which sits under a lamp upon a table
against the wall (where most of us have spent
at least a little time, sweating)
it’s power umbilical plugged to an outlet,
its invisible wireless thread stretched taut to a router
it’s bluesy halo perfectly apropos—
but whatever it is, it is necessarily of the moment
and I had asked for classical after all,
so I’m thinking Alexa must know more than I
of what this now must consist
Of what it partially consists are bell sounds
—not bells really but the closest thing
Chopin could come up with
to be played on an instrument
that sounds bell-like but which again
I admit: I haven’t a clue.
Despite having a poet’s surfeit of words
you’d think I’d not have come up short
before committing to a page, but it
is spontaneous magic as I sit here
among Chopin’s frequencies listening,
applying Chopin to the day’s doing,
wondering why, suddenly! Alexa has
shuffled Ahmad Jamal into the mix
and left me mulling what Ahmad’s
poignant jazz has to do with
what this now is
.
Jim Culleny
3/16/18