Everybody Thinks It’s True
If things were different,
if things were how I wanted them to be,
you’d have been the first one I told.
You could have celebrated with me,
given me some pointers,
loved all of me. Instead,
I’m sitting on the porch in the twilight
listening to Paul Simon sing
“Train In The Distance.”
In ten days I’ll be in Tucson.
Are you still there?
Are you there?
Are you?
/ / /
5 November 2023
Charlottesville VA
Category: Music
I Skipped “Maya The Psychic”
I raced home to tell you about
the production of Hamlet I saw tonight.
You would have loved it, or at least
you’d have loved that I loved it,
back when that was how things were.
I listened to our playlist on the way home:
“Supersoaker” and “National Express”
and “Stronger” and “The Ballad of El Goodo.”
I skipped “Maya The Psychic.”
Not because it’s not a good song
but because it sounds more like you
than I can usually handle.
Same with Hozier, who has new music out
and we play it on my station
which means every day
I sit there and listen and his voice
is really your voice.
Anyway Hamlet was fabulous
but when I got home it was empty.
/ / /
1 October 2023
Charlottesville VA
barefoot singer:
beating the rain
to the basement
/ / /
12 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
Airwaves
When the Ford Festiva’s tape deck broke
it was all radio, all the time.
The Afghan Whigs & Goo Goo Dolls
& Blues Traveler & Tracy Chapman
& Alannis Morissette & Jewel
& Dishwalla & Deep Blue Something
& Coolio & Hootie & The Blowfish
& Oasis & No Doubt & The Bodeans
& Natalie Merchant & Melissa Etheridge.
Driving the meanish streets of Tucson
with a styrofoam container of burritos
on the passenger seat, coming home
from a gig at 2 a.m. to an empty apartment,
and later to a less empty one.
/ / /
8 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 49 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Comment“Back On The Chain Gang” / “Fotos y Recuerdos”
I know this song because of Selena,
which is odd because I seem more
like a Pretenders guy at first glance.
You were rehabbing houses in Tucson,
I was playing nights in a latin dance band.
We were listening to a lot of music in Spanish.
When she died it was like a day of mourning
settled on the city. The guys you worked with
sang along to her songs on the radio and cried.
We moved to Japan and watched
Jennifer Lopez (a new name to both of us)
play Selena in the movie.
We rode the trains to work, probably
the only people on the Yamanote Line
swaying gently to “Como la Flor.”
All these years later I still think of
late-night burrito runs to Los Betos
when I hear her music, or else
watching Domino sleeping in a patch of sun
on the floor of our apartment in Yokohama.
Photos and memories.
/ / /
6 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 47 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentPlaylist
“Jackie And Wilson”
is on my son’s playlist.
Suddenly I’m in our car,
on the way to Livingston,
singing along with you,
hands clasped on your lap
or mine.
I almost asked him to skip it,
but I didn’t feel like saying why,
so I kept quiet and thought of you
until my breath returned to normal.
/ / /
5 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 46 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Gratitude
Mike for Joni.
David for The Roots.
Jeff for Bruce.
The other Jeff for Dire Straits.
Roberto for Cachao.
Jen for Los Lobos.
Josh for Jewels And Binoculars.
Dave for Toad The Wet Sprocket.
Ady for Lilia Vera.
A different Jen for Elvis Costello.
Grandpa for Glen Gray.
Grandma for Nat Cole.
Cory for Billy Bragg.
Kazuhiro for TMN.
Steven for Leonard Cohen.
Paul for Hugh Masekela.
Christian for Billy Idol.
Todd for KISS.
Ed for Johnny Cash.
Tina for Hank Williams.
Peter for Youssou N’Dour.
Kevin for most of the rest.
/ / /
2 September 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 43 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day for the 50 days leading up to my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentThe First Time
Junior high auditorium.
(It’s an old folks home now.)
Jazz ensemble show.
They got to the solo spot.
Mr. Boyce (now deceased)
stepped to the electric piano.
A kid rose in the sax section,
the school’s soprano sax shining
in the stage lights, to take a solo.
The drummer kicked into action,
Mr. Boyce pounded the keys,
the kid closed his eyes and blew
until a whole new future
stretched out in front of him.
/ / /
18 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 28 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentThe Waldo & Lobby Show
We pulled random CDs and records off the shelves,
knowing some of the bands but not all.
“Dorina” by Dada.
“Enid” by Barenaked Ladies.
“Everyday I Write The Book” by Elvis Costello.
Lenny Bruce’s “Captain Whackencracker” sketch,
found on an old LP in the back room,
and played during National Smoke Out Day
because it was pro-smoking and we were edgy teens
with control over the airwaves.
There was a payphone down in the courtyard.
The number was written on the studio wall,
so we’d call it during our show and ask random questions
to whichever passing student picked it up.
Sometimes we’d give out prizes. Some of them were even real.
We made an ad for our show that was nothing but explosions
with the name of the show at the end.
I said “airwaves” earlier but actually the station was cable-only.
You could listen to it in your dorm if you hooked up your receiver
to the college’s cable system, but our motto was:
“You can’t get us in your car.”
The station was called The Bear.
We were Waldo & Lobby.
And from the summer of 1992 until the spring of 1993,
we were invincible.
/ / /
14 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 24 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentColtrane
For my birthday one year
you bought me a mounted poster
of John Coltrane.
It hung in our house.
Then it hung in my apartment.
Then when my new partner and I
moved to Tucson
(coincidentally where you and I met),
it hung in the spare bedroom.
I looked at it often when I started sleeping
in that bedroom.
When I left I gave it to friends.
As far as I know, they still have it.
/ / /
12 August 2023
on a train in central VA
This is poem 22 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Fair Warning
Eyelashes. The stoic. Fuzz. Fedora. Specs. Curls.
The massive round house belonged to a friend’s girlfriend’s parents.
I’d never met them. I barely knew her, for that matter.
The band made the weird curved windows shake
with “Abacab” and “Money” and “Subdivisions.”
Impossibly cool in this suburb of a suburb.
People were making out in the billiard room,
making out in the hot tub out back,
making out on any reasonably flat surface.
The heck with that.
Sex is fleeting, prog rock is forever.
/ / /
9 August 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem 19 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentFor KB
August 1987, in the parking lot outside Canandaigua Academy.
That sounds posh but it wasn’t.
It was the summer before my freshman year.
I was waiting for marching band practice to begin.
I had just learned that I was going to be playing saxophone;
an instrument I’d never even held, let alone played.
A small group of guys were standing off to one side.
One of them was dividing up the drum machine parts
from the beginning of “Mama” by Genesis.
Each person was given one to sing.
I had never heard the song.
It’s quite possible I’d never heard of Genesis.
I wandered closer. He gave me a part.
Maybe the hi hat.
July 2023, on a bench in Canandaigua.
I don’t live there anymore and neither does he.
We’re sitting outside the old music store,
telling stories about days gone by.
His wife is there, his teenage child is back at his parents’ place.
One of my boys is working in DC before his senior year of college,
the other is working in PA before his senior year of high school.
Neither of my kids joined the marching band.
His kid plays cello, so the odds don’t seem good there, either.
We both still listen to Genesis, though maybe not as often as we used to.
/ / /
27 July 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem #6 in a new series, 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a CommentRoll To Me
We had the three networks and PBS and UHF
and the nearest music store was 45 minutes away.
The late shows had musical guests, so once we got a VCR
I started taping the bands I liked, or the bands I wanted to like.
10,000 Maniacs & Del Amitri & Black 47 &
Go West & Blues Traveler & & &.
The tracking was bad on the tape and the reception
had never been good to begin with, but I watched those songs
again and again until the artists were no longer even visible,
and then I just listened, until even the sound went.
I backed into a lot of music in those days.
It wasn’t about searching. It was about chancing upon;
accidentally getting a copy of On The Corner before
ever even hearing Kind Of Blue. Most of my music
was on records from my grandpa or dubbed cassettes
of things in my friends’ collections. In the mid-80s
I went to the tape shop in the mall and bought the first music
I’d ever paid for with my own money: Chuck Mangione’s
An Evening Of Magic — Live At The Hollywood Bowl.
It was a double cassette. A thick brick of brilliance.
When I learned to drive, I always wanted to borrow the Escort
because it had a tape deck. The Soul Cages & Signals &
Seconds Out & Bring On The Night & Brain Salad Surgery &
Running In The Family & Love Over Gold & The Final Cut,
all blasting out in the Ontario County night.
When it snowed, I’d put on a tape of the Star Wars soundtrack
and drive the deserted back roads with the brights on —
the poor kid’s hyperspace.
/ / /
26 July 2023
Charlottesville VA
This is poem #5 in a new series, 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.
Leave a Comment
the trumpet player
leans in and whispers
into my ear
a poem about death
/ / /
18 May 2023
Charlottesville VA
a gentle cow
(b)lows the saxophone
the club falls silent
/ / /
30 April 2023
Charlottesville VA