Loud Music
By Tufik Shayeb
Roll down your windows,
stop at an intersection and play loud music,
especially foreign pop songs.
In the depressed parts of the city
they stare, confused about which artist
just released an Arabic remix.
Talk radio is a stiff shirt collar;
just listen to a tired engine's life story.
Growing closer this way, more than friends;
call it, Autopus Complex.
Write a book about it, write a trilogy about it.
Autopus at Colonus, Autopus Rex, Autotingone
I should never be left alone with strangers,
especially while driving.
The sound of heavy breathing is bad breaks,
a busted motor mount, a power steering pump
on its way to the junkyard.
Pressed against my eardrum and screeching,
heavy breathing is a painful dentistry.
Sometimes, asthma is the collateral price
of spending time with another person.
Sometimes, loud music is just not enough.
Fancy dinners should have more loud music.
Steak should breakdance its way
into my intestines and join the party.
I tell him his insides will be haunted
by the spirit of a ruthlessly butchered
cow, singing its own endless mooo.
The world needs more vegetarians,
and he was a heavy breather anyway.
A passenger in the car, on the way
to see the dentist.
A vegetarian, a heavy breather,
like a banged-up car, such a loose tooth
you cannot wiggle it out.
My father hated the sound of apple chewing.
A sensitivity to annoying sounds
must run in my family’s gene pool,
or at least swim.
My buddy said he honked while passing.
I could not hear it over the thumping
jams of a Middle Eastern hip-hop scene.
There are reasons we do not speak often
and I am glad I did not notice his honking.
When you pass by old friends while driving,
it is like seeing a ghost. Mooo-oo-ooo.
Sometimes, the police officer carries a gun.
Sometimes, the police officer is a gun,
or maybe a son of a gun.
In high school detention,
my board would've read: Police officers
are not to be taunted... ad infinitum, in chalk.
Which is louder, the sound of a police siren
or el oud and the beating of el riq?
Judging by the bristle of his facial hair,
my music was just a little too loud that day.
Sometimes, the police officer is named Rick.
Sometimes, the police officer is el riq,
and acts like an ugly percussion instrument
especially after calling my music
loud garbage.
I should never be left alone with strangers.
Not while driving. Not while pulled over.
The sound of heavy breathing is a casualty,
a stop on the shoulder of the highway,
and sometimes loud music is just not enough.
Tufik Shayeb's (he/him) poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including West Trade Review, Potomac Review, Sheepshead Review, The Menteur, Lost Lake Folk Opera, Madcap Review, Heyday Magazine, Blinders Journal, Muzzle Magazine, and others. To date, Shayeb has published three chapbooks and one full-length collection titled, I'll Love You to Smithereens. Currently, Shayeb resides in Phoenix, Arizona.