Cameron Brooks

Band Practice

We’d form an oval in the corner of
that diesel-dank garage, the five of us, 
and melt each other’s faces off with such
distortions as could make Van Halen cry.
Van Halen is for wimps. The metal bands
we sought to emulate went by more fear-
some names: Meshuggah. Darkest Hour. This
Or The Apocalypse. I played a sleek,
black seven-string guitar, tuned down to drop
G#, but seldom touched strings one through four.
Our drummer had a double-bass drum pedal
for pounding out belabored breakdown grooves
of indeterminate time signature(s).
For his part, Gutz would yell into the mic
while leaping like an ape around the room,
producing from his camo cargo shorts,
at intervals, a gleaming bowie knife
as the other guys stood banging heads beside
enormous amplifiers, pausing mid-song
to fidget with a reverb knob or take 
a swig of some nonalcoholic beer. 

Our music wanted for finesse, it’s true.
We broke more rules than those we meant to break.
Our parents, being parents, thought it all
a diabolical embarrassment
and waste of brains. I guess they had a point.
But brains are overrated. We had a band.

Cameron Brooks is the author of Forbearance (Cascade Books, 2025). His poems are also found or forthcoming in Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, New Verse Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Cumberland River Review, and elsewhere. Cameron holds an M.F.A. from Seattle Pacific University and an M.A. from Princeton Theological Seminary, but he calls South Dakota home.