a poem is a sermon
I wonder how much of our time we spend actually listening to music? I don’t mean seeing a band in a bar (where there’s all kinds of distractions you’re probably focused on), or listening at work or while driving, or kicking up the surround sound when a Dolby sound movie comes on the TV. I […]
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All music cannot be contained
in simple structures, common forms,
by formulaic skeletons
that would restrict the way it’s made;
it reaches out beyond those lines,
a crayon in untutored hands
that blurs the edges in between
the guidelines of a thing.
Downtown along the river bank the party has begun; from miles away the slow parade of cars and people come for fried dough or some boudin balls, for gator on a stick, for cheap and warm domestic beer and wristbands that won’t stick. Across the social register today the lines are blurred. The crowd is […]
For forty years, I’ve sung and played; each bar, garage or concert stage has its own ghosts, its private songs. They do not share them all. Some of these venues are long gone, while others stand with different names; those that remain all show their age. We all get older, year by year. The players, […]
In the Marines, they quip there is no color: just light, dark and medium green. So it is with the blues, if you look closely enough; beyond the initial reaction, the worry over the metal detectors at the door, run-down houses down the block, a sign that hangs precariously by one rusty screw and a […]
While would-be existentialists consume their lives with endless lists of what-might-just-as-well-have-beens from birth through death and in between, I will continue, more or less, in both malaise and happiness to seek, to find, to stand amazed when hearing what songs still are made by those who choose to find the notes between the strings, beyond […]