hard music broke
upon us
as a wave breaks

as a breeze
breaks through a screen door
whispering “outside…”

except this breaking
tore us loose, tore us free
no gentle rocking

until released — 
instead a thrust
and arch into clean air

as if we were being
lifted above a crowd
we couldn’t join

but with hard music
we are lifted
above a crowd

of our own kind and
when we sink back
it is into their arms

to wait our turn to reach up
and carry another
on the wave

hard music
raising hell out of us
releasing it

hard music 
screaming
“this way out”

Time for church:

Telecaster,
both pickups on,
cable direct to
a Fender Princeton amp —
no pedals, clean channel,
treble and bass at 12 o’clock,
reverb up halfway.

It’s nothing special.

I don’t play well enough
for it to be anything more
than nothing special — still,

church enough
for me.

If I were a pure sound
I’d be a low hum in the concert hall
before the first note is struck, 

or the sound of 
a rung bell
fading;

enough presence
to make myself known
without intruding,

enough uncertainty
that one could argue 
for hours if I should be

considered
part of the Music — 
I do, of course, but then again

I think the indecision
and arguing over that
is also part of the Music:

sometimes percussion,
sometimes counterpoint melody.
If I were pure sound,

I’d stay with you,
right in the ridge
of your ear;

disappearing
at the moment
you fell asleep

unless I were allowed
to pulse on
into your dreams;

if I were pure sound,
purely sound,
I’d be honored

to sing 
in your sleep
for as long as I am wanted there.

a pipe filled with a black herb.
a series of effects pedals.
a loud amplifier.

a scrappy, crappy electric guitar.
a series of effects pedals reversed from the earlier sequence.
a reduced number of effects pedals. no pedals. no amplifier. 

an acoustic guitar.
a change of voice as nothing said or sung before needed to be distinctly heard.
a change of herb.

a pipe isn’t necessary except to loosen vowels when they are too tight.
a pedal moves a bit of air more easily than a puff on a pipe.
a fair guitar smokes itself, amplified or not.

a single chord may do the trick.
a single chord may change a player or the world.
a single chord may change nothing at all.

a single chord may heal or kill or have no effect
except to be satisfied with itself from strum to decay.
a truth that needs telling is that you can’t even do that.

a truth that needs telling is that you will nonetheless keep trying.

No mistake — we
will end in Music.

Take the full journey
to how we got here

and whether we start
back at First Drum (maybe

when feet shook the earth
while running or maybe

when stick hit stick or log
or rock hit rock — or skull)

or at First Song (maybe
with first imitation of wind or bird

or maybe when prehistoric lovers’ voices
pleased each others’ ears and 

repetition led to connection) we ran it in Music
and we will end in Music.  

We will end in Music,
blood singing through us.

We will end in Music,
wind in our hair.

We will end in Music,
hearts stepping down.

We will end in Music,
our lyric closing as we close.

If we were anything, ever,
we were Music — there was always

melody within, harmony to be 
sought and struggled for, rhythm

to frame it all; and when we’re gone
our survivors shall sing us home.

We end in Music 
which itself never ends, and 

perhaps that has been the nature
of God all along: the continuing Song

going on and on. The coda
of Beginning. The last lingering Chord.

Buddy Guy watches Jonny Lang
play a traditional constipated blues face solo.

Buddy Guy watches Ronnie Wood sliding, slinging,
posing wide armed at the end of his bars.

Buddy Guy praises them both
as he steps to the microphone:

“I don’t know how you feel
but I feel like I’m in Heaven.”

As for me, I feel like I’m seventeen again,
the age I was the first time I saw Buddy Guy

with Junior Wells: Junior all menace
and black leather, briefcase full of harps

not meant for Heaven; Buddy a benevolent
living example of why not everyone

needed a meeting at the crossroads
to tap into the Source. Still got it, too: that smile,

soft as a backwater in August. Those hands,
coaxing out a steady rain. I feel like

I’m in Heaven after having been mistreated
as he lays me to rest.

don’t write when listening to music
in case you get stuck on a phrase
and have to listen to more to get unstuck
and don’t know if you should re-listen
to the same music or perhaps
change genres completely, maybe switch
from swift stream jazz to more angular
metal or a blues stomp that releases you
from expectation because
so much could come from that
but then you’ll have to live up to it
and maybe the best you can do
is try to live up to it knowing you’ll fail
because all you have is a box of nested words
and the music has all the sun and moon and stars
and blood and pulse and if you have to ask what else
it’s beyond you
and with it being contained in one note
it’s beyond you
and without you being able to respond
without song yourself and you can’t
SING
it’s beyond you
so don’t write when listening to music
you’ll feel your fool coming out
you’ll feel your frail coming on
you’ll feel and have to stop
perhaps for good or perhaps for ill
but you’ll have to stop
you feeble frail fool
you’ll have to stop
and maybe not write again
until you are silent within
and with this song being
as large as the
supermoon stars and 
galactic sun drops on 
icy blue paths through
whitespace
that
won’t
easily
happen

A broken nail
changes the way a string
moves, the way it sounds.

I change everything about
my attack upon the guitar
to try and make up for it.

I fail perfectly. A new sound, 
a new song comes out of
the ragged touch of the one

I was attempting to play.
I like it better, better 
for now, at least — I may never play it 

this way again, but glory’s happening
tonight. Things happen;
glory comes from them, music

happens. I’m glad for
the broken nail song, the attempted 
redemption psalm, the make-do symphony,

for it’s there, in the silence between
the changed, strange notes,
that hope rings out.

His mashup 
core’s two songs
run together a love song
and a death song and
how those beats collide
collude and now he is
one then another and
the mashup reminds him
of all the songs he is not 
so what the memory does
is originates and
a new bit of beat and
big tears is made from 
mashup a mix a pastiche
of what is heard over
a year or ten and now
until so many bits and beats
smash into born again and
again the yet incomplete 
core of him tells a mistake 
story and a moral is not
anything more than imposition
of a unity among elements
never meant to be found
in the same place and all this
before he gets out the door
first thing on his way to
the singular nature of
his job. On the way to work
he plays the radio because
he likes to take a risk and perhaps
add a little season to the stew
the mash the hash within and
they won’t know him maybe this time
and he’ll go through the dirty glass
of the lobby into the cubicles 
not looking like
the same guy and he’ll be 
tossed out for not matching
his ID pic and so get to go
home and this time
no radio as he has chosen not to
have ears anymore
in a bid for healing an end to 
the mashup he carries
at his core and stop
in a field and let the noise
settle long enough
as he lies there on the grass
trying to remember his name if
nothing else not caring how it is
pronounced as it can be
pronounced anyway
he wants if he can’t hear either that or
how another responds
and right now this stone
of silence sounds
pretty good.

On TV
Annie Clark of St.
Vincent
playing and explaining
jazz voicings with a
vintage junk chic
Harmony electric
guitar

The host 
a fine player
is attempting to
play what she is playing
on a vintage not junk
Dan Armstrong
Lucite electric 
guitar but

can’t quite follow what
she’s doing to make
that slab ring and
sting such odd
angles in the air

She patiently explains
and demonstrates
for him again
and when he at last
gets it she
riffs against what he 
is playing

Guitars and
guitarists wincing
with glad effort 
Expecting nothing of music
but to be there as
music expects
something 
of oneself
to be paid before
offering any greatness
in any increment
no matter how
small

A bounty from each according to 
first ability and then 
need