My third finger stretches past its pain
as I pick out a simple melody.
I used to be better at this;
I used to be better than this.

After a few moments, I put it away;
move my finger till it snaps again
just as it used to, just as it had stopped
for a while as I played. It used to be better than this.

I used to be better than this –just closed my eyes
whenever the greasy notes of the chords
sang out and it sounded as if someone else
were playing. Never happens now —

I used to know better than this,
I used to be better than this.

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

Settling down with music
from the past and it seems so foreign,
feels so enemy —

I’ve closed my ears to so much
even these familiar notes
are starting to cloy and spoil

as if they are past their date.
I’d shut down if I could hope
to start up again but underneath

is a bubbling fear, a whisper within
that it wouldn’t work and I’d be left
in a horror void, vacuum of a world.

Yes, I could shut down, could dig into it
and not-sob with gratitude. But why bother?
Instead, I close my eyes. I try not to listen.

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

It goes without saying,
though I say it anyway,
it goes without saying
there is a ritual to morning
and noon and night (it goes
without saying)

that keeps me
grounded, if that is
the right word (it is,
it goes without blah blah
blah, why keep saying it
when it is so obvious) for it,

whether there is a purpose to it
or not; perhaps there is but
I have forgotten it, forgotten it
long ago — it went without saying
farewell, without a word — I had
a series of storms in my head
and afterward all was reordered,
was forgotten and maybe
forgiven —

at any rate
this morning I woke early
as I do every damn morning
but —

I did a new thing,
I played my guitar before doing
anything else, played it in
a new tuning, a kind of open
tuning, it gave me ideas,
gave me a structure

and it goes,
it goes without saying (of course
it does, why speak of it otherwise,
why let it come forth at all) that
I put the guitar back on its stand
and sat back, somewhat smug
that I had broken the ritual, had
been a new thing for five minutes;

this is how I felt,
this new thing
must be a tiny bit
of how someone’s god
must feel.

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

I have lost a great deal of weight
but don’t feel much different
other than marveling at my pants
not fitting the same as before

and my mind moving in fits
and magic and slovenly fashion,
casually expecting things to be the same
as they ever were — that song

repeating itself in my own
slapped head, like David Byrne’s —
same as it ever was except it’s
different, again always the difference —

my suit of clothes bigger than normal
so I laugh at myself unless I cry;
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was

for I have lost more than weight
and it comes and it goes. Right now it’s gone,
but it will return until one day,
one fine day indeed, it will not come back.

I then will see all my old body again
as I see it now — fleshy
and flabby, bulky and crowded
with old thoughts,

and I will say,
oh, my. Then I will get some
groceries — some peanut butter;
enough for one day, one sandwich,

and I won’t
finish it.
Same as I never do.
Same as it ever was.

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

It comes to me
upon rising,
an old song,
full and sweet
and galloping:

“I’ll meet you at Alamo Mission,
and we can say our prayers;
And the Holy Ghost
And the Virgin Mother
Will hear us
While we’re waiting there…“

and maybe I’ve got the words right or
maybe I’ve got the words wrong,
but in a minute or so
they’ll be gone

(just like these words)

and I will move on
with the ghosts
at Alamo Mission
where all of us
are so busy with nothing,
wiping their hands
on each others’ shrouds.

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

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