DRUM RUDIMENTS

During a lecture at
Brookhaven National Laboratory
I heard faint, high-pitched tones
At various times among the audience.
The subject of the lecture was
Mathematics in Bach’s music.

There are watches that can
Constantly correct themselves,
Connected by beacon to an atomic clock:
One time.

My brain divines cycles.
My brain
Is looking for a good time.

At Cornell University’s
National Nanofabrication Facility
There’s a strained quantum well laser
Turning on and off
28 billion times every second.
The intended use is telephone calls,
Promoting a sort of
Quick digi-speak.

“Hello,” you say,
to make your voice clear.
You might say, “I can’t make it,”
Your voice clear.

My brain is looking
For a good time.

I drove across the country
And I was three hours younger.
I stopped
At that third time-zone sign
And measured: it looked, in passing,
Like a one-sixteenth-inch thick
Metal timelessness.

I’m five minutes late for work
Five days a week.
At 2:05, I walk 500 feet
To catch a bus that’s two miles away
At 2:11, ride for about ten minutes
And walk maybe 500 yards from the bus stop.
Late, everyday, regular as…

I can walk about four miles an hour.
Blood flows through my jugular
At about 200 miles an hour,
I was born at six in the morning
And then I got older.

My brain divines cycles:

Trim my moustache;
Clip fingernails;
Wait one-hundred forty-four
Seconds for water to boil
For tea;
I have today off from work.

My brain is looking for a good time.