New Vinyl
…..—elegy
to take an album in your hands
to feel its slight heft
to free it from its clear synthetic skin
to slip it from its cardboard cover
to scan its art, to flip it over, read,
then slide it from its paper inner sleeve
with care (platter’s rim to palm just so)
so as not to grease and soil
its lyric grooves with finger oil
which might later cause
a lead-riff smother
to hold in hands —but only by its rim
between two palms— to catch the lightglaze
caroming from its onyx spiral, cast
like hairs in onyx vinyl
to drop its center hole upon a hub
and, as it spins, to lift the diamond arm
above the disk and set its carbon tip
to spinning rifts
……………………..… (with steady
surgeon’s chance)
………………………… to do its
oscillating dance,
……………………….. its ricocheting ride
off microcliffs
to send vibrations out
as turning table shifts
and shadows scatter
ah— in that sweet tick of space & time
music’s all that matters
Jim
2/15/18