The Hummers

Throw the switch onward into the early hours of the morning
--the main current, the real juice, the quintessence of the matter.
Let everything flow to pieces
and we'll still find the cardplayers
sitting hunched in the music room,
hunched over their endless game.

I, too, hunch over my endless game.
I hunch over the hummer,
the dark keys clacking in rhythmic rise and fall.

I must warn you, reader:
Your fearless narrator is slupping along
an extended biochemical excursion,
and the keys once upon a time shift inexplicably,
moving of their own accord
beside his remote fingers.

His fingers? My fingers!
I'm your goddamn narrator, damn it!
And fortunately there's nothing you can do about it.
Not a damn thing.
The contract's signed, sealed, delivered.
You're in my power, the fickle power of my slightest whim.

They all babble along that
communication is a two-way street,
but I'm going the wrong way do not enter.
Let's play epistolary Chicken:
what are you going to do? give me a ticket?
crash head on? turn aside?

No, you'll keep reading,
if only in hope of a sudden, redeeming swerve.
Fearlessly I type on,
knowing in my heart of hearts
that upon such hopes as yours,
I can impose volumes not worth wiping your ass on.

But have courage.
Perhaps, here before the humming Smith Corona,
surrounded by our mutually esteemed comrades,
the lateness of the hour will inspire.
Your narrator may produce something worth reading--
The proverbial ten thousand monkeys
typing for ten thousand years.

With good fortune we'll treat each other well:
to each according to his needs, from each according to his means.
My means are limited, how about yours, eh Comrade?
Definitely the faded fab four on the music box all evening long.
He blew his mind out in a car...i saw a film today....
having read the book...turn you on....

[Would you prefer I type a wall of sound?]

The cardplayers are silent.
They gaze at the stiff waxed cardboard in their hands.
One has just been dealt Chairman Mao on the draw.
The rest check their hands for Jacks and diamonds before betting.
A great competition ensues.
Girl, you know the reason why.

Hey now, it's Heavenly Berkeley, 1977.
Might as well, might as well....