mmmccxxxv

How Do Wop w/o
a Wah-Wah Myoot

the grace the
plungers that
open and shut
the snout of
our dear trum-
pets forlorn
french horns
the ting-ting
of our triangle’s
mustachioed
maraca mar-
imba and it’s
jazz as it is
and it’s jazz
as it does
the tiny joke
that hurts like
a hangnail as
clocks big as
ben strike at
twelve, and
look over there
that’s our sado-
masochistic
flageolet flag-
ellating the tuba
bullies into bones
the baritones make
flutes out of our whatever
wartime rumbles give birth
to, all seventy-six trombones
just before swallowing a
baritone sax, the bigger the
sax the more bongo the
boing-boings like bagpipes
that get lost in the biggest
baddest pipes you see high
in the sky of the gigantic
cathedral, the ones that
go boom so big that the
organist dares themself
not to avoid (and to boot
the death throe sounds
have big rats so in shock
and the ruckus erupts 

their own home sweet 

homes so, that the poor
things can never rid 

themselves of the 

shakes) because

when down goes his
foot across that big
pedal, why then out
comes a roar that’d
awaken the devil that
ends more like what
one just knows is a 

bagpipe’s hiccough, so 

one might, like a duck, be
compelled to worship rather
a clarinet, that is, if you’re lucky-
duck enough to bump into one
and who gets to know the sound
of an argument made by a bunch
of harps, that is a harp harp harp
and a harp being tickled so smooth
dripping trippy by eight long arms 

with eighty long fingernails, each 

one bent askew to make room 

for the violas and the violins
that upon arrival coax the
entire plucky bunch into
wartime bunkers so well-
made you’d forget about
violence altogether, go 

outright bonkers, were it
not for the harpsichords –
and what’s more absurd
than a gun-toting harpsi,
what’s less hilarious than
a slapstick with the oblong
certainty an oboe, squeeing 

here an oboe, there an oboe,
here an o, there a bow, 

everywhere a musical
elbow – which, when 

get bumped clump so
altogether that they

stump even the 

symphony nerds (yes,
even the tenors still 

stuck in puberty) an 

ensemble who woos 

the woodwinds that
squawk harsher than long
nails on slate into stints as
dj's at the dance-hall down the
alley, watch them scoot their
needles over the thirty-eights,
the sounds of creaky gates,
a midnight that has the
cowbells bingle-bongle
for a little bit before it’s
back to crickets for us
bums, at least, that is,

til the dance-club’s 

open and we’re 

all up and at it

once again.