The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Hilary Sideris

The Drone

            It's got nothing to do with rock. It's to do with roll.

                                    —Keith Richards

The moment you tune

your guitar to one chord,

you have to learn where not

to put your fingers, what to

leave alone. Imagine a piano

turned upside down, the white

keys black, an ocean pulsing

in a shell. African tribesmen,

Vivaldi, Mozart knew—

you let one note jangle

& throb behind the brain.

The same train takes you

from the Delta to Detroit,

the human heartbeat.

Westinghouse

After inventors & investors

settled on electrocute,

having considered ampermort,

electromort, electricide,

they tried the chair

with mixed success on Bill 

Kemmler, a former fruit vendor

& drunk axe murderer

who'd used the blunt end

on his ex. Edison coined

& pushed hard for the verb

form of his rival's name,

citing as precedent

Dr. Guillotine.