154 Music poems

“Mister Johnson I see you look to buyin' Mister Johnson That all you want is Fame? Mister Johnson Now what you got to offer? Mister Johnson Salvation is my name With a rhythm on a riff That's practically God Oh Lord, I'm a pure Undivining rod I'm a flickerin' candle With the blackest light I'm the darkest angel And I own the night Mister Johnson That instrument you got there Mister Johnson It's Lucifer's guitar Mister Johnson I'll tune it for you, baby Mister Johnson They won't know who you are I'm a cutthroat seller, The Magician of Deal Who can stoke sweet fire That'll make you feel Like a hothouse flower On double defrost Who won't give a nickel For the petals it lost Mister Johnson You slink on back to livin' Mister Johnson In devil-may-care control Mister Johnson Don't thank me for the favor Mister Johnson I thank you for your soul”

Watching the dark my spirit rose in flood On that most dearest Prelude of my delight. The low-lying mist lifted its hood, The October stars showed nobly in clear night. When I return, and to real music-making, And play that Prelude, how will it happen then? Shall I feel as I felt, a sentry hardly waking, With a dull sense of No Man's Land again?

As an experiment, TheWashington Post asked a concert violinist— wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a baseball cap— to stand near a trash can at rush hour in the subway and play Bach on a Stradivarius. Partita No. 2 in D Minor called out to commuters like an ocean to waves, sang to the station about why we should bother to live. A thousand people streamed by.  Seven of them paused for a minute or so and thirty-two dollars floated into the open violin case. A café hostess who drifted over to the open door each time she was free said later that Bach gave her peace, and all the children, all of them, waded into the music as if it were water, listening until they had to be rescued by parents who had somewhere else to go.

(Alec Soth: "Kenny and Bill—Bad Newz, Grand Rapids, Minnesota") They tilt their guitars and stare. Each boy puts one foot toward Us, one where a trailing wire Would run to an amplifier If amplifiers were there. Bill's Gibson glitters like ore. Kenny's Iba ñ ez hoards White noise in its black fretboard. Bill's double chin shows. Is it fair To mention his pudge? Kenny's hair Gets stuck behind one ear. Each of the brothers wears A T-shirt, loose jeans, and a pair Of bruised high-tops. A pear- Shaped garbage bag hugs a steel bar. The big rectangular blur Behind them looks like the door To a walk-in refrigerator. Maybe dad is a restaurateur, A diner owner who requires Kenny to spend six hours A week moving cases of beer, While Bill chops potatoes, or scours Grease from the checkerboard floor. Bill imagines a national tour: CBGB's. The Black Cat. Hardcore. Or metal: the glow and allure Of arenas and open-air Pyrotechnics at dusk, a chauffeur. Or do they hope modestly for Sideman jobs, L.A. 'burbs, the secure Work of studio engineers? Two boys hold two guitars In a basement kitchen, and care What you think of them. Next year They promise to practice more. Right now their repertoire Is six songs, seven chords, Five originals, and a spare Reworking of REM's four- Minute anthem about a lost car: "Can't Get There from Here."

Badu: This cyclone of good fortune. You handling? Kendrick: Happy blessing myself. graduated          , struggle come big           far a blur . Problem is           my bubble.                    Tell me “You’re crazy            by yourself,” “Kendrick” I’m in my own world. let everything consume me. The other end, has a conception of who what comes from me, from within no matter passing            or playing ball. Was a               hole            building up for this pen,                      I wanted to be the best so I’m taking it.

Milij Balakirev 1837-1910, Russian Composer The black grand piano, the gleaming spider stood trembling in the midst of its music-net. In the concert hall a land was emerging where the stones were no heavier than dew. But Balakirev fell asleep during the music and dreamed a dream about the tsar's carriage. It rolled along over the cobblestones straight into the crow-cawing dark. He sat alone in the cab and looked out but at the same time ran alongside in the road. He knew that the trip had been long and his watch showed years, not hours. There was a field where the plow lay and the plow was a bird taking flight. There was a bay where the ship lay ice-bound, lights out, with people on deck. The carriage glided across that ice and the wheels spun and spun with a sound of silk. A lesser battleship:Sevastopol. He was aboard. The crew came forward. "You won't have to die if you can play." They showed him a peculiar instrument. It looked like a tuba, or a phonograph, or a part to some obscure machine. Scared-stiff and helpless he understood: this is the instrument that drives the warship. He turned to the sailor nearest him, desperately signaled with his hands and begged: "Make the sign of the cross like me, cross yourself!" The sailor stared somberly like a blind man, stretched his arms out, sunk his head down— he hung as if nailed to the air. The drums beat. The drums beat. Applause! Balakirev woke up from his dream. The applause-wings pattered around the hall. He watched the man at the grand piano rise. Outside the streets lay blacked-out by the strike. The carriages rolled swiftly through the darkness.

The curtain parts one last time and the ones who killed and were killed, who loved inordinately, who went berserk, were flayed alive, descended to Hades, raged, wept, schemed— victims and victimizers alike— smile and nod and graciously bow. So glad it's finally over, they stride off suddenly a bit ridiculous in their overwrought costumes. And the crowd—still dark, like God beyond the footlights of the world— rises to its feet and roars like the sea.

Heifetz’s Decca recordings show him doing what he did best: transforming two- and three-minute trifles into works of perfection. —John Maltese Imperfect things are always— it seems—a wave of some wand away from perfection. They’re there—the toady and the bumpy with warts—for turning into princes. Even pumpkins— propped upon piles of lumber— idle like unupholstered carriages up on cinder blocks. But a trifle’s potential— its capacity for alchemy, actually— can leave you longing for lead. So many things you think are Prince Hals are really just kings.

In the back of the junkhouse stacked on a cardtable covered by a ragged bedspread, they rest, black platters whose music once crackled, hissed with a static like shuffling feet, fox trot or two-step, the slow dance of the needle riding its merry-go-round, my mother’s head nestled on my father’s shoulder as they turned, lost in the sway of sounds, summer nights and faraway places, the syncopation of time waltzing them to a world they never dreamed, dance of then to the dust of now.

for Brad Gooch We snort all our coke on the way to the party. We bring the new album. We dance while we listen. The band is two women whose husbands control them. They do not speak our language. Each syllable’s an obstacle. They are in love with a man. He is in love with another. But they’re in no hurry. They could wait forever. And when they are out on the make for a lover, they’ll always find him. They are the tigers. We are stoned too stoned to. We dance till we’re tired and listen to lyrics we mouth like a language. What we feel, when we hear them, is inexpressible. We can’t put into words. Maybe our dances show it. ABBA lives for their music. We long for each other. They see what we’re doing. They put it on record. They play it, we listen. We are absolutely stunned. We feel, and they know more than anyone can say.