We Gig
We throw the word around like gold coins:
got a gig, come to my gig, gigging tonight.
We are cool, we play music for money,
not that boring classical
Tributes
Don’t Stop
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
It’s about a dark night, a path, thick woods.
The light was nailed shut, then opened like a door.
The cabin you found had a hard dirt floor,
cobwebs, an old guitar made of plywood.
Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
My Daddy Was an Appalachian Folksong
a harmonica-breathing picker of tunes,
wayfaring stranger, foot-stomping pilgrim
of sorrow unseen in honeysuckle and wildwood
flowers high on a mountain his daddy
Letter to Bob Boynton, Music Prodigy
Dear Bob: I find myself hearkening back
sometimes to those old days when you and I
were playing in garage bands, way way back
in high school. You were the drummer and I
was the guitarist.
In the Arboretum
I tune my guitar
to the bird who sings in almost E,
the one with almost perfect pitch
while counting 1 & 2, 3, 1 & 2, 3.
Shaking Hands with the Dead
They took a piece of cadaver
and put it in my wrist,
dead ligament better than
no ligament at all.