“he didn’t leave much to ma and me just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze”  s. silverstein

if you thought it was written by Johnny Cash
you are forgiven a little

if you thought he was telling the truth 
you are forgiven a little more

if you hate your name too 
and all you have to fight it with
is your missing bad ass dad’s old guitar

you are not only forgiven everything
you are blessed and should forgive me
for everything I am about to say

“they’re dead wrong I know they are cause I can play this here guitar”  weill, mann, lieber & stoller

can you explain 
why it took four people to write one line
about a truth every 16 year old kid 
with a death grip on a maple neck
learns by osmosis
from the first chord

“well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk”  b. springsteen

can you
interrogate your guitar
till it owns up
to things you have never done

“the bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar”  d. bowie

if you’ve not 
stolen a guitar yet
have we even seen
your bitter yet

“your guitar it sounds so sweet and clear but you’re not really here it’s just the radio”  l. russell

ghost superstar by dint
of your broadcast ominpresence

in fact in truth in real life
we end up usually alone
in a small room
with wood and wire 
pen paper and bone

this is what
it does for you
does to you
kid 

get ready

no hairband power ballad
broken hearted nostalgic chum
high on the neck twiddle de dee
for thee tonight

no power chord slammed across
the fingerboard rosewood and bridge of ebony
no fingered delicacy rejection ode
for thee tonight

what happens now
between that G string and me
whatever happens a bend away
from the obvious note is my choice

but let it not be the same as always before
let it not be a stumbling around soundhole
as if that were canyon and not foramen magnum
the open spot on the head of my child

in this fresh moment between me and thee
let what creation may come
not be familiar or copycat or influence bound
let it be ours and new and ready to grow up and out

First song I hear today:  
“Box Of Rain.”

I wish I could remember what it felt like
to be a Deadhead.  All that song means to me now
is that some college kid’s being clever
with a hurricane on the way.  But there was a time,
allegedly, according to photos and ticket stubs I’ve saved,
when I knew everything
about everything Deadish and the first notes
would have set me spinning, talking about
concerts in Lewiston, Nassau, Pasadena.

Let me stress that I was never a hippie.
I WAS NEVER A HIPPIE.  Too violent
and cynical ever to have been one,
I’ve owned one tie-dyed shirt in my life
and most of the acid I’ve dealt with 
was my own bitter bile.  But something
there was in me 
once loved the Dead
as a good son loves the first full escape
from home…

Oh, that lifestyle:
no concert ever the same twice,
no song ever the same twice,
no guarantee that you’d ever hear
what you wanted to hear;

goddamn, it was the perfect extended childhood —
everything new and surprising,
every time.  “Nothing to do except
smile, smile, smile.”  Ah, you have to love them now:
such easily marketable icons, such a deep well of symbols,
such a music no one ever even really tried to make.

A hurricane’s coming in tonight.
I have to buy something or other to survive.
Maybe I’ll drag out the old records and listen tonight
but then again, maybe I won’t — 

nothing really to do except worry, worry, worry.

it is too late for me to become
angus young
but I will make some noise
because noise is no respecter of the limits of age
when a half assed old player
has unlmited rage
available to take up the slack
between skill and desire

it’s too late to fall in love with jim carroll
(directly)
but I’ll kiss what I can of him
and hope the taste rubs off

it is too late to rock and roll all night
(every night at least)
and party every day
(at least the way I used to party)
but never too late to move
from consumer to producer

what I need is an amp
and a neck to strangle
what I need is a microphone
and a problem to solve

what I need is feedback

what I need is to make something
everyone’s already made
but do it louder and faster and harder
than I could have done it
back when I was too young
and too concerned about who might be listening

no one’s going to listen to me now

perfect

maybe I’ll become
me
for a moment

At the
tip of my hearing
far away crashes
and thudding rhyme,
high-whine scrawl
of a guitar solo driven 
way, way over:

a heavy metal show at the nightclub down the street.

Hand-horns and denim required for entry.
I feel like I’m not old enough, or too old, 
or built indie-elitist-too cool for school-wrong to go.

I feel like if I don’t go
I will have surrendered,
stepped off the part of the path of wisdom
that leads through excess. Tonight
I want to be one with that certain defiance
that comes through walls
like a stone drill mounted on a Harley,

all the way through selfish walls
to rest near the beating flesh heart
of a whole bigger
than its drum, bass, guitar, and vocal
parts.