Daily Archives: October 6, 2014

New Crazy Dog Song #1: Street Death Serenade

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 7/4/2008.

good night ladies
good night ladies
good night ladies
we’re going to leave you now

we’re visiting our graveyards
we’re opening our Sterno
we’re bleeding on our tables
and we’re going to leave you now

merrily we roll along
roll a log, rolling wrong
merrily we roll along
along the restive bay

street song ladies
forlorn ladies
murder brides and babies
we’re going to leave you now

merrily we roll along
string together mortal songs
verily we sing the song
of failing on the way

we leaped at damage
we drank some darkness
we ate your children and
we’re going to leave you now

verily we roll along
rob a throng, drop a bomb
merrily we roll ourselves
into the red dead bay

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 5/28/2010.

Tiro de cuerda: the Spanish term
for the perfect tension
on a guitar string,

the strain that lets it cry,
a tension found one or two
turns of the peg shy of breakage.

More than once I’ve sat in an audience
and seen a player, rock god
or flamenco acolyte, snap a string

and keep playing,
plotting on the fly a new course
among those remaining,

but have never heard
a recording that included
that sound. It seems odd:

that snap
would seem to be
a sound we would adore

as we are usually most thrilled
when we can witness
death being cheated.