The Kodacolour Building
(Eastern Paradise)

from BACKGROUND NOISE

It was the dregs of summer. The city
was loud with beer-fuelled conversation.

We heard yelling and then a terrific noise;
a police car stopped out on the street.

I kept my door locked, my head down.
After all, it was your dream, not mine.

Maybe the concert was a set-up job?
It contained some rather strange soundsÉ

For a pianist his style was quite different,
could have been subject to more self-editing.

The audience cranked the handle, made a roar.
Instruments hummed and whirred, then sang.

Outside the window not-yet existent music
hovered over the ochre-ripple of the desert;

a drop of hot asphalt dripped down the sky;
at sunset the water glistened for our ritual.

Living and inanimate things were all transformed;
I had a difficult time remembering where I was.

Before my thoughts went from nice to now
I listened to that kind of stuff alone in my room.

© Rupert M Loydell