What Kind of Trance Is This

I enter a room coated

in plaster. A man says ambient

like trance like house but

words still blister in Bushwick.

In the null, a friend asks

do drone strike operators

listen to trance? Sometimes

music blocks thoughts.

Other times a bar projects me

elsewhere in good boredom.

Missile, I am so distant

from your shockwave.

Here I face holey t-shirts

& heads of beer. Fuel mist

sounds like a band name,

& I can’t say I’ve been

where drone music takes me.

Missile, I don’t know how

the rule will waver

when the tempo is lying.

The tempo is lying & I hear

a missile drops on Afghanistan.

The word chemical acidifies

for miles. My wires are bent.

So are yours. Do you tremble?

Maybe I shouldn’t ask. Think only

of people, the soft ground

beneath you, beneath you.

Sometimes one high note

makes waves livid. Trebling,

no land in sight, a mind takes years

to blister, I think, to callous.