Dango

the old rocker takes flight

Guitar Hero unnamed and fast approaching an age
where geriatric stroke-induced tremolo vomiting
is not unheard of on stage, he let loose with
a canon from his bowels at the very time of his
highest screaming solo

Yeah this man, once proud
relic of the `60`s who sold out in every way but
his clothes, torn and frayed dungarees, beads,
long and oily grey hair snaking down his back,
hunches over the behemoth electric guitar
that lords it over his shrunken and mishappen body,
an Iago of the rock age who long ago slipped poison
in the drinks of the best and brightest
and slithered through the door to fame.

Icarus & Sisyphus, pals

Sometimes I think we take pride in the work
that could not be completed, its very
incompletion lends to the mythology
of the shimmering masterpiece that might have
made all the difference, the way his
drug addled mind evolved, Brian Wilson
burst out with Smile 40 years on,
Hendrix working even in his grave to bring us
First Rays of a New Rising Sun,
these pushing-rocks-up-hill attempts
to bring to flower what any child knows,
ambitions to touch the immortal
and flaming-out last attempts
mere arcs in a cold sky.

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.

Jazz

jazz is a sound about maintaining
and going about your business,
not designed to help you fall in love
or nurse a broken heart, not particularly
caring if you listen

a black coffee morning,
the earthy Hills Bros. scent
of brick-oven roasting
as you enter the City by the bay bridge,
so much better than a cup ever tasted
an enervating jump up and go-ness
to which there can be no sugar added
and not a drop of milk

when the stresses and wound-up city pleasures
threaten there is always a moment of accepting
certain things about living, and aging, and dying--
jazz is no middle aged dandy trying to comb
over that bald spot and attract young girls
by the station, jazz stands calmly, supremely
comfortable in its own clothes.

The Great RocknRoll Mash-up

There came a time when 12 record producers
realizing that twelve rooms of recording engineers
couldn`t help them rehash hash
turn shit to Smash

searched for a Singer of Merit
such that real-view men and women
who fed non-stop from online hawkers
file-sharers and pajama-wearing flim-flam men
would look up in awe and reach for wallets

finally devising a plan to construct
composite-DNA Super Groups via
scrapings of Bob Dylan`s epidermus,
Beatles`hair samples (later identified as
those of a John Hall Jr. from Abilene, Texas),
nail clippings from the third toe of Jimi`s right foot
(cut by one of his quick-thinking, good-time
drug buddies as his body turned blue)
a flake of drool from Elvis`
pill-debauched easy chair

Oh the record men cast their nets far and wide
and came back with many fruits of their labor,
developing a way of cloning the swerve and sway
and sense of menacing danger that had drawn
fans far and wide to buy their lps,
mashing these traits with those of
the business minded lapdogs
they preferred to lunch with.

That`s how we got Maroon 5, your Honor.
And that`s the honest truth.

Source and Echo

An interesting question posed,
the country in which one must live
to see one`s art properly appreciated,
not one too close to the source surely
as those who live near the spring
are not likely to value pure water

Transplanted to the city-hemmed and worn
folk clubs of Berlin the high and clear echo
of the old mountain valley can perhaps
be best appreciated as something to cut through
the apartment blocks that jut and crag
on wintery plains

yet once removed, though showered
with the applause of a thousand
the heart does grow desperate to recall
days when notes bent and lumbered,
were plucked from intimate skies and sunsets,
the vigour and whim of local dogs
running circles around, and up and down the hills
until standing with hand on knees and beating heart
you viewed the tree-crowned sunset.

flute in the desert

sitting on the edge of the soft red rock,
looking out into an immensity of space
this is the desert, this is my body thin and fasting
I am playing the flute now often, feeling
the gauntness of my body and the whisper of a wind
still not cooling, this dry wind that blows
against my skin, the flute which I am playing
in strange half scales partially covering the holes,
the simple notched bolivian flute that is so
haunting and distinct, I would like to disappear
and sink into the temporal with these beautiful
women I have discovered, naked and open
while I am still closed and distinct.

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.

Hendrix

As I cut Purple Haze, rearrange the rage
and place those fluid honey jams
in proper order, all I can think is of a great man
a living experiment in drugs to be sure
everything and the bathroom sink,
yet glowing with visions of how we might evolve
if we just put heart and ears into it
bleating on his public saxophone
requesting a taxi home,
the great Hendrix melting down the house
with spanish blues and UFO standards,
trying to do his father proud.

the homebody leaving blues

the 60`s are slipping
great moment in time
that may never be revered
as it should, once you sit around
and get high a few too many times
who cares to recollect

the times they are a changin`
though standing on Mission Street
in the full sun, watching the last few
ungentrified city souls go about their daily
I can just picture Santana toting
his case to a gig, midst the colors
and fros and heads

while Steve in his cabin in the Sonoma woods
percolates with the old folk songs and rhythms
like Bob Dylan conversing with balladeers
in his head, a veritable convention of misty-eyed
mountain men sharing pipes and wampum
Herodotus, Thucydides, whoever might care to
stop by on a clear moonshine night

Oh I can see for miles on a clear Pacific noon
high above the long ruffles and rolls of clouds
in a post turbulence trauma glow
with my girlfriend, alright