When I read the prompt today on the NaPoWriMo website, to write a poem about listening to or singing a song while driving, incorporating a lyric quote somewhere in the piece, and I read the example poem by Ellen Bass, I knew immediately what song I would write about. And shortly thereafter I also knewContinue reading “#564: Starlings”
Tag Archives: music
#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements
I We’re in Ohio, outside of Daytonin a town called Xenia, stayingat a Hampton Hotel, where theideal of the mythic guest-friendship is somewhat wanting. All the fixturesare installed off-kilter or crooked,the bathroom door came off itsglider, trapped my wife in there,I almost lost myfingers trying to free her,and the toilet seat is broken. No oneContinue reading “#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements”
#557: Hotel Breakfast (a loose villanelle)
“I was poor in love, I was poor in wealth,”But breakfast is complimentary here, and“I was okay in everything else there was.” In my free associations between Young,Bejar, and Dylan, over bad hotel eggs,“I was poor in love, I was poor in wealth,” The refrain from a song on Destroyer’sKaput keeps rattling inside my head,“IContinue reading “#557: Hotel Breakfast (a loose villanelle)”
#556: Dylan
Dylan The night before the trip, visiting with a dear friend, I drink a beer after 60 days without alcohol. I have another beer when I get home. I feel like a million bucks. It’s a question of when to stop, which seems like a revelation. At the newly refurbished and beautified Portland airport lobby, weContinue reading “#556: Dylan”
#554: A Friendship Ghazal
All my best friends are musicians, it seems, which is no surprise, Cool cats who sing, strum, pluck, pound, mix, and write, not a surprise. I married one some 39 years ago and we’re still together, drumming. I did the easy part, but she gave birth to one, a great drummer, surprise. Guitar players, whoContinue reading “#554: A Friendship Ghazal”
#553: A History of Drumming
Today’s poem is very loosely a poem. It’s a little essay broken into lines so as to imitate a poem, a pretty standard technique of mine. I tend to be pretty liberal about what constitutes a poem and what does not. Like most discussions around genre and form, it’s really only interesting if one findsContinue reading “#553: A History of Drumming”
#550: That Guy
Wednesday night at the John Grant concert, my friend and I sat mesmerized by his witty stage banter, his beautiful voice, one man, a grand piano, and a synth. A low volume rock show, in between songs after the enthusiastic applausewe could hear the theater seats creak,and while he played, even in the quietestmoments, IContinue reading “#550: That Guy”
#549: Living With Aqua Convergence
The only paintingsI’ve ever purchasedare paintings paintedby my painter friend. Aqua Convergencewasn’t the first or the last pieceof his I bought, but it sitsmost prominentlyin my consciousness. I see it every dayand almost every day I will linger in front of itand admire its underwater beauty. His crazy world and mineseem to collide; his art,Continue reading “#549: Living With Aqua Convergence”
#547: The Art of the Lie
The Art of the Lie I am in full agreementthat John Grant is no namefor a rock star, and yet, he is, nevertheless, a rock star to me,and his most recent album, The Art of the Lie,has been in consistent, heavyrotation. I listened to it todayin the car as I drove to Pure LifeClinic forContinue reading “#547: The Art of the Lie”
On Finding a Routine
Embarrassment of riches: retired guy has enough time on his hands to do any thing he wants, has a list of such things at the ready, and yet, some of the things he wants to do he doesn’t do–or, more accurately, doesn’t do enough of to satisfy his own self-critical assessment of his productivity. HeContinue reading “On Finding a Routine”
michael jarmer 