It wasn’t ’til the summer before senior year we’d pool our talents together. They said we’re just players, which we were, the Seven of us, each earnest at our instruments. We named the group with a lofty title, the Golden Chords; guitars, drums, keyboard, horns and even a Shovel instead of cowbell. We wanted our tunes to sound sur-real, we thought ourselves the ultimate cool, imagining in our dorm rooms we were progressive, our music left of radical. The first concert? In the school auditorium. Having practiced all summer, we bravely faced failure that might lurk behind each tune, but played late into that Friday night, with encores we improvised. We felt ready to strike out after graduation to the clubs, not straight jobs. It was an effort to agree, but we did, even got the shovel player to sing. Who knew what a great voice he had, a sin of omission that boosted us to the fests. We honed our skills into the tight and thin, yet slowly let our lives go to drugs and gin, then toured the world, but in the haze we ourselves created, married now to jazz as if June brides to syncopation, no families be we Seven, ’til I saw each one of us die, except me, here to hand over a swansong soon.
Notes
After “The Pool Players: Seven at the Golden Shovel” by Gwendolyn Brooks.