Dango

Watching the Sky

It`s about the strum, the foot
on floorboards and the intricate
loose-spring stop watch crunch
of the instruments clicking together
with sounds plucked from the air

helping one find a way, slowly through
the darkness inevitable in life--
Gillian gets it, Garcia clearly got it
though by and large those who get it
are humbled by music and not
in a rush to get it to disc or stage

It is a balm lord, a clear and virgin liquid
that runs like sap down a knobby tree,
it is the essence of life which we take in our ears
and savor, this teaspoon of pure amber
syrup, the sticky music of mess

watching the sky, watching the clouds
that hang low and yes, feeling your neck
fingers twining to make a lover`s prayer
and watching yes, the sky.

Strum

We sit around the lone microphone
in the reconditioned barn,
the sky has been a welcome blue,
the wood boxes we sit and strum
in search of meaning, sounding weather,
sounding travel out of these earthen boards
complementing eachother in songs
and words for endeavors
not well thought out
or carried out, but done.

saving my guitar

I was in the old house, on the woody hill
in Montclair, where so many dreams begin
my guitar, the Norman I bought last summer
had developed a serious case of the bends,
it was buckling and coming apart in so many places
the wood crumbling like beef jerky,
and there in his little workshop a bearded man
a luthier I think, expert
accoustic craftsman made grave diagnosis
with a twinkle in his eye
that led me to believe there might be some hope
he could salvage

we went to work, he and I, taking the damn thing apart
as the house turned into a commuter train
he the conductor, following the jagged
contours of the japanese coastline as we worked on this
thing fitting pieces like a jigsaw puzzle

suddenly emerging from the forested, hilly coast
straight ahead skimming the bay, and winding up at
a nature theme park, I got out with my ticket
asking directions back to Tokyo
in a language no one could understand, maybe english

the train had taken off
my guitar puzzling hero with it
still fighting to save the life of an acoustic
while I wandered around in my usual daze

the Guitar

My first guitar big and awkward
a 150 dollar guitar with a bridge much too high
making it impossible to play
even the most rudimentary chords
pressing strings down with determination until it hurt,
taking an eternity to finger the next

when I bought that Norman lo! sometime in college I got a big lift, the chords suddenly miraculously
not yet fluid, but allies in a battle to define self in song, playing as much for ocean waves as for the living,
learning humility and patience

carrying the image of the spare and elemental, old acoustic blues players playing for the fields and frogs,
bands that made a point of having the freedom to fuck up, for whom sloppy was a way of expressing the uneven texture of life, depth and rhythm a way of unearthing the many hued treasures of the mines in which so many had labored, the guitar becoming a thing of some craft
as it gradually grew to fit me.

gillian welch and dave rawlings

His guitar snakes with melancholy
echoes of coffee shop psychedelia
mining a rich vein of appalachia tinged desire
Her voice mournful and wearily looking down
the long-sloped barrel of america`s yesteryear
where Tired was a thing you felt at the end of
a long day in the field, not fleeting
but dead weary give-up tiredness,
when the long drawn out notes seemed to pull
the very rhythm of the working day
and through their kinship
give comfort and somehow the will
to pull those old bones together just one more time.