poem

Record Store

Has anything bad ever been stored in a bin,-

forgetting for the moment

confined loonies, in for dark deeds or failure to

comply-not potatoes, say

or the solo mittens and knit caps living lives

of quiet desperation

waiting in vain in dark grade school Lost and Founds for

their young indifferent owners.

Bins packed tight with used record albums organized

alphabetically, canted

cardboard jackets, nothing up their sleeves save for sounds

committed to memory,

on the first hearing. Flat, carved, gleaming disks shot through

with notes, chords and one, perfect

hole through the center of all that noise and messy

creation. I sort through the

bins, a kid again, fingers slower, clumsier,

oiled with that fine patina

of filth, dust and grease, badge of honor bestowed by

Sam the Record Man thirty

years ago for dogged perserverance, combing

the bins for hidden treasure.

Now, pawing the wares in this new store in my own

neighborhood, flanked by youth hip

to wax, adrift upon the thinnest of pretexts,

hunting a pristine Kind of

Blue, some Bob Wills or John Fahey, I part mossy

layers. The bins release an

appeal to my senses, blunted by the perfect

cool of pure digital sound.

December 14, 2011