My brother says that he plays
only for himself, doesn't really care
if anyone out there in the vast empty space
beneath the stolen parking lot klieg lights
can actually still hear. Still, I notice
that he carefully keeps a tally
of exactly how many feet
he can hear dancing in the space
in front of the bar, just behind
the mosh pit, which he's carefully stocked
with only his closest friends, to provide
the appearance of spontaneity. It isn't
that he wants us all to be crushed, just
that he needs to know that someone out there
is physically moved by his dissonant notes
to want to destroy something, even
if it's ourselves. In the middle
of the crowd, we suddenly
find ourselves chanting lyrics
from a song that would be a hit
if my brother had anything
to do with such things, but of course
he insists that he doesn't care, is only
in it for the art, so when we find
that we can only remember the chorus
that he played again and again in the garage
while we were trying to study physics, we all know
that the men behind us, shouldering
their last lagers while getting ready
to leave before the encore, won't care
if we botch a few words, so long as we leave them
free to let the waves of sound descend over their bodies,
untouched even by the desire
to join us in the front, dancing away
any desire to contextualize
the interplay between sound and silence.
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