New poem: Music

There’s a road near to where I live where

men sit in cars listening to music. I walk

past them trying to figure out if there’s any

kind of link between them. They don’t listen

to the same kind of music. They’re not the

same age. Their cars aren’t the same. They

come to the same street. They sit in cars.

They listen to music. They drive off. I know

that they listen to music because it’s loud

enough to hear outside the car. Sometimes

it’s radio: Capital, Heart, Kiss, Radio 1,

Radio 2, Radio 3, Classic FM, Jazz Fm and

radio stations I don’t know. Some days it’s

music I want to hear. I stop and listen. They

don’t seem to mind. They don’t get out and

say, ‘Stop listening to my music.’ I don’t think

I’ve ever seen one of them ever get out. Not

even that thing you have to do when you

sit in a car for a long time, open the door, get

out, shake your legs about and get back in.

They never do that. I don’t know how long

they stay. I walked past one of them once

and it must have been loud enough for the

people in the house to hear. It was very early.

You would wake up and hear that in your

bedroom. You would want to come down

and knock on the car window and say:

‘Excuse me, I was asleep.’

But then, he would just say, ‘You’re not now,

though.’

Or you could come down and say,

‘Excuse me, have you got any Tamla Motown?’

And he would say, ‘No.’

One night there was an old man doing it.

Very, very old with a white beard. I didn’t

recognise the music. I’m guessing but it could

have come from Turkey. He was smiling. That’s

another thing. They don’t usually smile. This

one was smiling. He was still there in the

morning. The music was on. He was asleep.

I think he was asleep. No way of knowing for

certain.