Ode to Utah Phillips

No one could ever be so blessed
With the complete lexicon
Of an entire history,
The complete experience,
Of those whose roots
Are salt and coal,
Steel and timber.

Generations of working folk
Live inside his grandfather’s beard:
Their songs of struggle,
Songs of solidarity,
Form the solitary
And singular
Purpose of this library
Built upon a railroad.

His life was an echo,
A reverberating remembrance,
A bridge to the past
That he dedicated his life
To building,
Bringing years, centuries,
Life and death,
Together in unison,
Reminding us
That the past
Is still in our hearts
In song.

Ode to Robert Johnson

The awkward shy boy
Walked down the dusty road
And found his soul on fire
At the crossroads.

The smell of BBQ, brimstone,
Whiskey and sulfur,
Seasoned the howls
Of the hellhound on his trail.

He returned from his obscurity
With a bottleneck
Sliding along steel strings;
With a voice of copper mash
Piercing holes in your spine
He dragged the devil out of a guitar
And shredded his heart
In pursuit of salvation,
Trying to draw the shine from the moon
With the crying shout
Of his haunting heartache.

He tore the eyes out of despair
And scraped the flesh from sadness,
The shrill knife of his vocal lament
Carved a hole from eternity
That was flayed upon the flames
Of his smoldering strings
Ringing out across the Delta.

Ode to Susana Baca

Her throat is a loom
Spinning vocal fleece,
Songs like silk,
Milk and honey,
Sweet like surrender,
Giving in to the breeze
Only she sees
When parting her lips
To whisper her sensual
Secret
Softness.

Ode to Jimi Hendrix

Lightning
Liquid
And
Laughter.

Electricity
Only accentuated
Eccentricity,
It was all he had to do
To plug his brain
Into an amplifier
And let fall his liquid soul
Dripping from his
Octopus’s fingers,
Laughing that electric
Liquid laughter
So comical because
What he was doing
Was opening the sky
And letting his listeners
Glimpse the secret purple
Heart of the muse.

It wasn’t the LSD,
That liquid inspiration,
That only dissolved
The barriers of reason
That he kissed good-bye.
What was it he had,
What possessed the man
Like the devil had gotten into
His hands and was dying
To live upon the air?

What would you do
If you had the most beautiful
Woman
In your hands,
She who would do
Whatever you asked….

Music was not an art form
But love itself.
Six chakras strung upon a guitar,
He was the seventh, lining them up,
Dressed in flames,
Burning down the church
And making an altar
Out of the bed where he
Performed the divine sex act,
While he kissed the sky
And left a hurricane
Echoing in his wake.

Ode to John Coltrane

He comes dressed in scales,
Robed in blue notes
And riding a dragon,
Bringing chaos
And dragging order
In chains,
Reshaping the destiny
Of form.

At times
He seeks the purpose
Of the soothing seas,
Casting soft undulating waves
Creeping onto aural shores.

His voice through the reed
Trickles in like a stream,
You don’t know
What is around the next bend
But he guides you
Through the stepping stones
Until you arrive
At the waterfall.

And there waits the train
That runs ahead
Where none had dared venture,
And his voice becomes a sword,
A frantic assault on reason;
His instrument becomes a weapon
That tears into the consciousness
And lays waste to the calm,
Leaving you in tatters,
Wondering how something so terrifying
Could be so liberating.