For John Kelly

James Brown who was a mad dictator
Is said to have enjoined his players
You’re not playing a guitar
You’re playing a guitar drum
You’re not playing a bass
You’re playing a bass drum
You’re not playing a horn
You’re playing a horn drum

James Brown could not have done otherwise
For he had been touched by the hand of God
He did not consent to his epiphanies
Any more than Lazarus to his revivification
And since James Brown must manifest his talent
Or what we weakly call talent
As surely as dogwood must bloom in the spring
He lorded it over the hapless mortals in his band

He could not help but prophesy
And on this occasion
As rarely for prophets
The content of James Brown’s strictures
Stands to reason
For in soul music as doubtless in all music
Rhythm comes before all else
And all players first play drums

Even singers first make the rhythmic grid
Take the birds with their Peter Peter Peter
And their Drink A Beeerrrrrrr
And Who Who Who Cooks Who Cooks For You
And primates are not far behind
In devising the patterns of duration
The lemur’s accelerando
The long-distance calls of howlers and gibbons

And those cousins the whales afar remote
In another grander dimension of space and time
Of vastness of extent and period
Count beats not per minute but per hour and per day
And now the hominids have exploded time and space
As they have their towering cities
Conquering death and bringing death to bear
With their technology their spells and their planning

For they have encoded in their cries
The logic of instrumentality
The logic of instruction
And they transmit skill in guise of command
To stitch a garment or tune a lute
And for all this song can never die
Decorum and due measure
The sweetness of sound the solace of sense