Your eyes are drawn
across the dance floor.
A couple is shimmering there, 
fluidly rolling in and out of the crowd, 
spinning, disjointing,
reconnecting in mid-spin. 

You’re not mesmerized alone.
Everyone pulls back
to make room,
the crowd transformed
into a ring,
the darkness around a fire:

they are a fire now.
They are the fire now.
Flushed, whirling, aware of all
but unconcerned.
They know they’re the ones
giving warmth and light, the ones

glowing like
the entire history
of the tribe.

Does not matter
how many instruments you buy
how rare they are
how odd they are
where they’re from —

if you are
that sad kind of player
who twists fingers
lips and lungs
into knots trying
to transcend
by sheer mechanics
the spirit of the maker
the spirit of their time and place
the blood in that soil and 
the tears and joy that fed it — 

if you’re that player
take a seat 
and learn first to sing
Make yourself over into
instrument
Seethe and roil with
your own blood

Then go back
Untangle your parts
from your head

Play now
sad player
See if you have stayed
the same kind of sad

“John Barleycorn Must Die”
comes on the radio before dawn.

I play the guitar
because of that song;

when I was a boy I heard
the fingerpicking before dawn,

and I could not die
without having at least tried

to play like that before dawn,
sitting alone in growing light, 

imagining I could pull the sun
closer toward the horizon with every note,

then break
into a hard and glorious strum

as it cleared the distant line
looking just as glorious.

It took me years to even come close,
and by then I knew how foolish

it was to think that I could make
things happen. I’d been like

the men in the song
who thought themselves strong

but ended up vanquished by 
what they thought they controlled.

Like them, though, I’m still drunk on
the myth, and this morning

my fingers woke before the rest of me,
before I fully knew what I was hearing,

and they moved
as the light in the bedroom grew.

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.