Johnny One Note

The mallet strikes but something's off,

and so he hits again, curling that lower lip,

purses his brow, as if this sign, this minor woe,

were speech the vibes might understand,

so when he lifts bluish lids as if wakened

to the desired tone that rings now, it seems,

it sounds, under wraps, a water-ly quaver,

through the club crowd's silence,

as it floats above us like an aerosol

trying to find a new way to escape,

passes through the wall's mortared pores

to reverb in the cool night air of an

unpeopled sidewalk, droning toward tracks

where a passing peopled train sucks up

and winds his finally found, wowed tone

around its wheels, held there by steel heat

one hundred miles, until it reaches the sea,

where wheels and whistle overreach

surging surf the good vibration feels such

desire for, and leaves its tedium

of the round and round, lofting to a sea

that comes and goes but finally simply goes,

as one night, this night, the cool vibes' air

(struck finally in the changed groove of sax

and ecstatic kit) is free, finally free,

to go where we won't hear from it again.