I saw the news about the famous drummer found
pulseless in his hotel room in Bogotá, the boulevard
outside the Casa Medina lined with sunflowers,
fans singing through the night. Truth is, I didn’t know
much about him, & I flashed on my old friend Richard,
how we used to chop lines of speed in his basement,
Richard pounding those flea-market Ludwigs as I
banged on my knock-off Gibson, screaming into a
Radio Shack microphone. We scored one gig, opening
for his brother’s girlfriend, fifteen minutes under a
purple disco ball. Richard was fast, slow, no one cared,
least of all me, floating in feedback, kicking bottles
off the stage. Years later, I spent a month whispering
to myself in the dark before nurses doused my skull
with lightning, current echoing in my brain, so many
pages devoured. I ascended, stumbling back to the
bright platform of the living, that synaptic chorus
dredged from a muddy tomb. Now I pause, listening
to the famous drummer drum, a playlist that unfurls
like a long memento mori, an extended adagio chopped
into FM flares. I try to recall Richard’s face, his sarcasm,
but they’re verses I can’t quite conjure, refrains that
elude me. His brother called in 2012, it was late March
then too, the suburban yards shimmered with red leaves,
lavender blooms. Richard had died from an overdose,
found by neighbors facedown on a shag carpet, his dog
barking over his corpse. So many dead by needle, pills,
in fiery wrecks, souls who refused to succumb to the
tempo life demanded, drummers who flogged the beat
until no one could find it or lagged until the song fell apart.
Today my city’s young again with the rhythms of spring,
but I’m spelled by ghosts, they huddle in the shadows,
voices mumbling on repeat, as if begging to be heard.
& I hear them, at least for a few measures, before I turn away,
shoving myself sunward, back to the music at hand.
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