Walter’s Canon

by J. B. Sisson

This music crept upon me from old Walter,
infernal noise of Pachelbel and crew.
Walter enlivens his greenhouse next door
with therapeutic tapes to calm his plants
whenever summer’s heat stress makes them falter,
classical tape loops that are never through,
soft melodies you’d always loved before,
till repetition made your neurons dance
like panicked broncos bucking their first halter,
till digitalized brain waves boggled you
and that mosquito whine became the roar
of hectic voices raving blackout rants
in your dungeon with Melmoth doubletalk,
“where noon and night shake hands that never unlock.”