Twenty Flight Rock

Woke up 
singing Eddie Cochran’s
“Twenty Flight Rock” 
No idea why

At once I thought 
of seeing Ry Cooder
play it — solo acoustic — long ago
at the Newport Folk Festival 

I’m not much given
to nostalgia which feels
to me to much like 
lusting for ghosts

who can only feel
what they have always felt
Why do that when
there are new things

to be felt
Why repeat yourself
endlessly with the same
old same old movements

going back again
and again through one
life two lives three
lives four 

Although
I’m starting to drag
and soon enough might be
ready to sag

I’m not yet ready to
say things were
so much better
before when

I could look at Ry Cooder
playing a song from his own old days
in his own splendid fashion
and say I could be him someday

So fuck the ghosts
who crowd around me
demanding obeisance
to their past

when I am still learning
to play not like
Ry or Eddie
but like myself

No matter how far
I have to climb I swear
I will only go to bed
when I get to the top