sonora2sonoma

They should have posted warnings at the door.

Trapped in a barful of bagpiping bagpipers

packed tight as a tin of sardines,

Pipers piping prolifically,

their pipes protruding preposterously,

everywhither, porcupine-like, in every quarter,

one parked menacingly close

to my starboard ear

another, portside, drawing alarmingly near,

with a third preparing a full-frontal assault

poised, with endoscopic intent,

as if deciding which nostril

would be the most propitious point of entry.

Trapped like a bug in a bagpiper’s web

like a dream in a dream-catcher’s net

held captive

and forced to endure a sonic assault,

a blaring bedlam of boisterousness,

a cacophonous clamor of caterwauling,

a sonic trifecta, unpleasant, unexpected and undesired.

An assault on the senses and on sensibility

reaching into new and, thankfully unimagined dimensions

in the realms of musical possibility–

(If only they’d stopped after two numbers)!

while heralding the unsurprising discovery

that bagpipe music,

like garlic,

has clear and unambiguous limits,

practical, sensible

and universally undeniable limits,

beyond which only the hapless, the hopeless

and the witless

dare to venture.

27 January 2016

Tim Konrad