LatinosUSA

A Love Supreme

All music is in the understanding of one note
Said the Indian master
Sarod player Ali Akbar Khan
Romanticizing mystical Oneness,
Wind instruments,
Darkness as a myth,
Guilt worn like a hat.
The roundness of an old vinyl record
Turning clockwise under dust
Gathering around the head of a silver needle.
No need for robes or doctrine
When the saxophone blows.
The blues is all the stuff going into growing up,
Said John Coltrane.
Rising metal modal tempo,
Minor key riffs and the gospel release,
Fractured into polyrhythms.
A cane to the head,
A broken lip.
Zen-like weightlessness.
Wise word from a woman in a pink hat
Heavy with desire for liberation.
Voices from the margins
Sing from the diaphragm.
The art of a bygone day is no less valid
For being an orphan,
Said music historian Dennis McNally.
Human lips subjugate the reeds,
Reeds whip tender flesh,
The chest holds the heart
And most of the blood.

previously published in Wild Roof Journal

~~

Silence Bomb

Silence has a poker tell
Silence is a gateway drug
Silence is a knee-jerk reaction
Silence has thick skin and no guilt
Silence is an ineffectual apology letter
Silence is a tiger with a thorn in its paw
Silence has an ugly mouth to be slapped
Silence has a clean mask and a dirty mind
Silence cannot be indoctrinated by dictators
Silence is a dead leaf falling from an oak tree
Silence is a magnet for ghosts and chalk outlines
Silence is a shapeshifting zombie showing its blurry teeth
Silence is an unreliable narrator entitled to run its mouth forever

~~

Ode to the Drummer

Copper moon caught in a windshield,
The laid-back soothsayer’s shuffle,
Born to feed wild arpeggios.
Thrumming through the air,
Strict or loose with the groove,
Snare drum sagging in the greasy heat.
Ambient noise and ghost notes.
Primal and not beholden to a metronome,
It’s the sound of angels throwing dice,
Sticks and bones and native fire,
Cacophony of indigenous rhythms.
Pop and a fleck of blood on chrome,
Cymbals synchronized in bronze decay.
Diaspora of sparkle and confetti
Pounding out a transcendental beat
Before the sky dies and the stars go extinct.

~~

The Harmonica

Bones and pulse,
Thunder and trickle.
Its heart cast in shiny metal,
Its message no price tag.
No doctrine,
No mouthful of dogma.
Not magic, cold logic
Or any trick at all.
This machine kills dishonesty.
This machine stains a white t-shirt,
Slaps a tongue and shouts fire.
This machine is a body throbbing,
Expressive of blood and time,
Ears, diaphragm, groin.
This little handheld machine,
Human-made and very breakable.
Animistic, apolitical, fetishistic.
Pry open its guts,
Teeth sharp with rust.
Tiny screws for elfin fingers,
This machine is not a toy.
For those with intestinal fortitude,
This machine can be used as
An enema for the soul.

~~

Rock Formations

I think of my friend, New Hampshire Reggie,
Reggie, who died in a car accident one summer
Trying to surf on the hood of a 100 mph Mustang
While Reggie’s buddy drove using only his bare feet.
Poor Reggie got thrown into oncoming traffic.
Reggie, whose parents lived in a rental
With no fence but a grey concrete retaining wall.
Reggie’s parents gave him what they call now
An eco-funeral, burying him in a biodegradable green shroud
Under a weeping willow up by Lake Winnipesaukee.
Reggie grew his own under fluorescents in the bedroom closet.
Reggie in his Hendrix headband and black light posters.
Reggie taught guitar and bass at the community college,
A front for his prolific green thumb.
We used to lounge on the big white rocks overlooking Laconia.
Reggie taught me Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water.
Reggie of eagle feathers, crow’s feet, granite, and snow.
Reggie of forgotten destiny, Reggie of the ether.
Reggie told me how George Harrison, the quiet Beatle,
Said in an interview that he could have quit music altogether,
Said he just as well could have foregone all the mania
Lived anonymously and became a gardener.