Boogie-Harmonizing with the Boogie-Terrified

At the moment, our household has a lot of musical instruments. I hadn't really paid attention when it was just three French horns, three trumpets, a keyboard, a ukelele, and some unknown number of recorders and harmonicas. But recently the instruments have multiplied to include a cello, a guitar, a snare drum, and a marimba. Let me tell you, a marimba does not go unnoticed.

here's a marimba
Since marimbas are on my mind, I wanted to share this poem today:

The Boogieman Plays the Marimba
by Glenn Lyvers

Nobody ever asks why they call him The Boogie-man.
It’s because he has music in his soul. You can find him
playing the marimba in the zocalo on the evenings
he is not terrorizing children. When he is though,
terrorizing the innocent, he does so with style.
He peeks his head out of open closets, riffing,
“Booga booga, dittly dooga, boom boom boom.”

When the children cover their heads, and cry out for
daddy, he falls in tempo with their screams,
“Dadeeeeeeeeeeee”
“Fapity, dittidy, skittatee, deeeeeeee”
until there is a perfect mix of harmony on the long “eeeeee,”
and then when daddy appears, he slips back
into the darkness, still riffing in his head.
He pops out, and then into another room
with another bed.

At daybreak he changes into his sneakers again,
his “boogie-shoes,” and he taps his foot
while he plays the marimba, rolling his hips—
all day shuffling, riffing, foot-tapping,
until it’s time again, when he pops out to boogie-scare,
and boogie-harmonize with the screams of the
boogie-terrified. He is the “Boogie-man”
and he has music in his soul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted with permission of the poet.

Mary Lee has the Poetry Friday round-up at A Year of Reading.