Work, work, work

It's so wrong that I'm thinking "Let's get this out of the way." I did take joy in writing it. I'm just so darn busy.

I guess it's ironic, then, that the Writer's Digest prompt today was "work." I flashed back to my days as a music critic.

One of the most insulting things that happened then: I was at the execrable Nissan Pavilion to review Red Hot Chili Peppers for the Washington Post. I love this band. I didn't love being seated next to this rather chatty dude who, before the show (possibly during Queens of the Stone Age?), was droning on and on to his girlfriend. She finally said, "Be quiet! You're bothering the older lady!"

Whereupon the older lady, acutely uncomfortable, went up the hill to the top of the lawn and enjoyed the rest of the show from there.

I'd like to get this into a real sonnet--when I have time. (This is a second draft. Still putting my half-baked goods out for consumption here, hoping to get credit for palate, recipe, etc.)

Re-creation

As Kiedis flings his hair about the stage,
as lighters catch the weed and raise it up
to lips and lungs that suck the magic in
and folding chairs slam shut as balding dads

(some younger than the band, older than me),
the kids, the hicks, the prettier girls are raptured
flesh and soul, I check my lens and catch
guitar god Frusciante in my sight.

My hips give thrust to Flea’s marrow-deep thrum
and on my tattered pad my pen might drum
like Smith, though half-assed, hardly Smith-worthy,

and all my notes, disposable, will drift
away while all their notes, unseeable,
endure. This second-handiwork: my job.