Headphones at Dawn
— Edward Sanders
Just as young people studied City Lights pocket poets
or mimeographed magazines
for news that was Really News
by the mid and late 1960s they studied stereo albums
as if they were religious texts
or as an anodyne to the crimson chaos
or even to help them build courage to
stand up for change
Raptured at dawn with headphones listening to Cecil Taylor
Jim Morrison & the Doors
Joni Mitchell
the wild wail of Janis
Dylan & other mind-mending mind-bending mixes from the revolution in multi-track over-dubbed recording —
gifts from what Charles Olson called the Electromagnetic Aeon
Still Another Signal
— Gerard Malanga
Someone has written
on the wall of the
flat I’ve just moved into
nothing changes
A Three Point Shot From Andromeda
— Paul Beatty
rain rusted orange
ring of saturn
in urban orbit
over an outdoor gym
nighttime jumpers
pull up to the hoop
dance on the rim
bolted against a
metal backboard sky
riddled with
ninety nine thousand
BB sized holes
compressing fifth floor duplex
kitchen light
into a galaxy
of 50 watt schoolyard stars
supra flex intense constellations
handcheck
rotate on defense
double down
tryin to guard
spinning playground
planetarium delirium
of black gods flyin
on neighborhood rep
shake n bake
pump fake
jab step
past orion
walk on air
and burst a reverse
on the stellar bear
image: Lisa M. Robinson, Snowbound, 2007
* Contributor Andy Fox has worked as a private investigator and a bartender. He’s also edited a book of poetry and plays in the D.C. band Nice Breeze. He has published The Dust Congress since November 2002.
