In the radio right now
after fifteen new releases and
an old chestnut, something from
the vaults,

every one trying to escape;
the only place they can go
is into me; it is damn
uncomfortable and getting

worse; I put my head
down between my knees
and the radio shuts up
temporarily because it knows

something about madness
too; then turning the old song
into a key and using it to
release the river within

me; free as milk set loose
upon a table, upon my table,
cereal disregarded; what am I
doing here in this moment

with new songs and this old
bastard of a tune that Captain
Beefheart wrote, that he
streamlined to commercial

success which it never
achieved as far as I can
tell; tell me — did he end up
like me, head on his knees,

unknowing, no future,
he and I lined up end to
end with only this song
between us, this sad buffer,

no clear spot here
to help me get by?

Something there is in here
that doesn’t want me
to get rhythm right
with a guitar or my feet
or my chest
Thumping back
out of time
Skipping a beat for a clumsy moment

I put my head down
Stop speaking for a moment
I don’t play or dance
for a moment
and for that moment I am
suspended above this mess
called by whatever name it fits
over my shoulders

I put my head down and would cry
if I had a chance
but I don’t have that moment
Cannot concede any breath to it
Instead I pick up a guitar
stretch my cramping hand
tap unsteady with my wounded feet
and let my heart do what it does

for a moment or longer
No one can stop me
no matter how sad or shattered
I become in its aftermath
No matter how bad I sound
for one moment I am suspended
in thrall to my music and tears
my clumsy feet and then even more tears

“““““““““““““““
onward,
T

Woke up this morning with my mind set on
the radio. It felt like freedom to me, the radio
telling stories like it used to. Springsteen’s
mother-in-law yapping in the back seat followed
by him yapping at his girl to hang on, suicide
isn’t worth it, please stay here, it’s not your lungs
this time…

I turn off the radio. Everyone there
is fictional, mythic; sometimes true, sometimes
not. I’ve got a real life here, after all;
there’s no point in sucking up to a hero’s life
no matter how fraught it is with thrills or danger
or even the silly eyes-closed headache of a woman
doing her best to get along with a son-in-law
who just doesn’t get it…

If I close my eyes, I almost do get it. I almost
understand all of them — a woman frustrated
with a headachy man who has had his purity fussed with
by a woman who has punctured his planet
either by silence toward her mother’s trivia
or by silence toward her own, that silence being
not trivial at all as she slides toward death —

or perhaps it is? Perhaps this one’s not Sherry
baby at all but someone else, someone nameless
to the man who serenely doesn’t care about him
and I am impotent to speak of her, so powerless
in the face of her own death that she still haunts me
years, decades later; all I have now is a song sung
by someone else. I turn the radio back on;

her ears are tuned to the sound of an alien distant shore,
or something like it. I would close these eyes if I could,
Sherry or Julie or whatever your name was.
Believe me,
I would.

A rippling acoustic guitar,
thick male voice over that
and a bass note underneath it all —
is that really there or is it just
an undertone coming forth
unbidden? Unexpected tone —
you can imagine the sound engineer
hearing it, liking it, nodding
and saying, “Let’s leave it in.”

Of course I know nothing
of these mechanics of engineering
a song; can barely handle a rhythm
anymore, what with the
accursed disturbance
of the muscles
in my fretting hand,
my left hand,
my strong hand;
but I can close my eyes and dream
of the possibilities there,
I can surely dream of them.

My guitar dreams
of them, certainly;
my hands twitch
under their influence;
my still-shut eyes
twitch as if they weren’t
going to weep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

When there it is, your guitar
siting next to you on a stand —
a guitar called Kojak (because
it’s a Telly, get it?) in the vernacular
but whose formal name is Telecaster —
which has two waiting single coil pickups
and simple as hell controls, is black and white
and sits there all of thirtysome odd years old —

when the guitar sits next to you asking
to be played, even in some simple way
with simple chords;

when the guitar
doesn’t understand how badly your hands
have decayed; every strum hurts at first
until you figure out some key reasons
to keep at it, to keep strumming
or fingerpicking;

to recall one or two old songs
from your deepest past yet you
don’t really know them well anymore,
they are rising and falling in the mist
you call your mind these days,
you have to struggle to recall them, to sweep them
forward to your hands, to shift Kojak
on your lap to get any purchase upon them;

when this happens, do you give up the struggle
for the songs, do you put the guitar back on its stand
and whisper, “another day, Kojak, another day,”

or do you stretch your hand back
to its deformed players’ shape
and go back to it, the song coming out
wrong again and again but still, you and Kojak
keep at it until your hand cramps, your brain
closes your eyes, and you sit there for a long time
after, asking the guitar: “who loves you, baby?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I was listening to the radio this morning
as I do every morning
and the DJ played “Ripple;”
I cried. I don’t cry
for many songs — definitely
“1952 Vincent Black Lightning,”
maybe “Rhapsody In Blue,”
now and then that piece by Samuel Barber
with a name I don’t remember —
but I cried for that one
with its sad but full lyrics
about something, something;
that Richard Thompson song
with its heartbroken lyrics about
something, something; the songs
without lyrics too, whose unsaid words
come up to my pants and tug
and plead something, anything; something
something; I don’t know what they say
but they say it plainly enough if I can
listen closely enough, but I never do;
instead I listen on the surface
and weep, so magnificent
and humbling they are, so much
said in the spaces between the notes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

I play one song on the guitar
over and over, trying to get it right;
I never get it right.

I change guitars to try and get it right,
and it’s better — but it’s not right.
I put the guitar down after a few attempts,

or moments, or when I’m discouraged
beyond caring anymore — and actually?
It’s always the last one. Always

I am beyond caring, except: I still care.
I care and worry about my brain, my head;
my soul, if you will.

In moments like this, the soul
takes a moment to stick itself up
and out of me; peeking, if you will,

at the nemesis, the flashpoint
of its existence. The guitar
opens a door into the simple void

that leads to something — despair,
perhaps, or another realm? I don’t know.
There’s a sudden glow, then a fade;

I sigh and bend to it again;
lost, for the moment, in
the inherent possibilities.

So: I sit and grind my teeth and go
forward into the same song again
with no hope of it being any different

this time. But I do it, hoping anyway;
I do it as if one more round on the guitar
will break it loose and make it work;

outside of me and my guitar
an entire universe waits to be found;
with small hope, I set myself to the task.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

Watching a landscape on a television show
where a castle once stood, one torn down
by soldiers attempting to kill a man’s memory;
frightening his followers, satisfying his haters,
leaving him up to wind and rain for so long
that no one recalls his name. It happened
so long ago that the assistant director
yawns and rolls his eyes in weary disbelief
that he has had to come here to keep
some measure of reality alive for those folks
who worship each rumor and whisper each hint
and relentlessly watch and wonder if it’s true.

Watching a landscape on a television show
that tries and tries to render it alive and dangerous
while the watchers sit outside the story and think
that if it is true then this must be magic
and if it is not it still is magical in the way most music is
except it is not lyrics or notation or anything
at all like those; rather it is an exhalation of sound
and in there is a lock that can be picked without a key
if one cares enough and one day it will happen
but until then the story will have to be enough.

Watching a landscape on a television show
where a man dies and an assistant director rolls his eyes
and ardent fans of mystery struggle to understand
and casual fans of music struggle to hear it in the background;
in the meantime the musicians take a break from it
and smoke cigarettes and try not to think of it
and manage not to think of it at all; in the meantime
the soundtrack devolves into a case of blues
and no one, but no one, cares for it at all.

Where did the landscape end up?
Who wrote this music?
What is the name of the song?

When the TV is turned off, does everything dissolve
into the everlasting stream of memory?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T

After the ball, a prince
and princess undeniably
shacked up.
No pregnancy followed
and a few months
later the two broke,
somewhat bitterly
though that faded and they both
were left feeling a sweet sorrow
called saudade by the Portuguese,
one that is most often felt in the lyrics
of one of their folk songs,
akin to flamenco, called by them
fado –
but I digress, as I so often do
these days.

Yes, prince and princess
went their separate ways,
their tiny countries not unfriendly
bu clearly at a distance from
the world order, almost as if
they were forgotten by the larger
nations around them until such time
as they became a jewel to be plucked
and placed, stolen, in a diadem
by first one and then the other;
there was sorrow and anger following
and both princess and prince perished
in the aftermath; bloody, disheveled
yet unbowed; one could hardly
tell them apart — but once again I digress
from the point I’d like to make:

ah, it’s forgotten —

but somewhere in this sodden fairytale
there lies a moral about faith
and forgiveness
and a sordid little message
about two against the evil world
for a short time until they
fall apart; how their countries
fall apart almost independent
of the failings of individuals;
instead I am left with
my own cold fingers
trying to conjure a new missive
that is also an ancient one
and nothing prepared me
for this —

how mundane
the world became overnight,
how hard it was to get up
and sit here typing, how easy
it’s become to just close my eyes
and forget all this — prince,
princess, war, fusion, struggle,
sadness, music —
saudade, fado —
just close my eyes
against it all, not weeping for it,
never a tear in me
for all the sweet bread
in this world.

“““““““““““““““
onward,
T