Soap bar pickups

top hat knobs

mother of plastic inlay

gold top

sunburst

trapeze tailpiece

the log

Rhubarb Red

overdub

patent applied for

How High The Moon?

The New Sound

humbucker

Jeff, Jimmy, Eric, Duane, Pet… Read full post »

What is modern? Modern classical music is the music of Beethoven. Modern physics is the physics of Schrodinger and Einstein. Modern dance is the dance of Martha Graham. Modern art is 70 years old. We need the term contemporary to describe the art and dance of our time as if/… Read full post »

I was a late comer to Rock and Roll. Because It was what everyone else listened to I had to listen to something else. 40's big band jazz and delta blues was my thing. It wasn’t until I got to college that I started seeking out rock music in all the… Read full post »

I didn’t think that it could get worse than Reagan, telling us that the way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons was to make more of them. That trees caused air pollution. Phoning in his scripted one liners that substituted for speeches. And of course, trading weapons in return for… Read full post »

The Way You Did

Perhaps if I knew you well enough to write a poem I wouldn’t have to write one

Did anyone know you? 

Some thought they did, women mostly, but they were deluded

I only know the parts that I got,

The charming… Read full post »

I am unworthy to take such liberties with Ulysses but someone had to do it.

June 16, 1904, Dublin

Feeling a bit peckish? Tea and toast should hit the spot, for her, of course. For yourself, perhaps a bit of the inner organs of beasts and fowls? Maybe… Read full post »

The robin’s song is different now

It’s not the same one he sang this morning

The notes are the same, it’s the tempo that’s changed 

This is a slower, more deliberate song

Sung with care and purpose

Last year's collards, buried alive, have persisted and grown tall

T… Read full post »

I have a fat cat. Alright, I have two fat cats but one of them is merely plump while the other is FAT! I have had them for one year and for the first time since they came to live with me, took them to a vet yesterday. I’ve put/… Read full post »

Lambie

Sitting by your side at the piano while you played and sang show tunes

Clinging to you as we swam 

I once brought you a bouquet of flowers, one from each of the bushes in the yard that I could reach

You could embarrass me like… Read full post »

I was writing on a chalk board today and the chalk was screeching as it does, giving my audience of three group members fits. One of them, a physics geek grad student, told me that breaking the chalk in half would stop the noise, a trick taught to her by/… Read full post »

1. Constant entropy tends toward minimum energy

2. Constant energy tends toward maximum entropy

3. I’ve been inside (with scuba gear) the giant ocean tank at the New England Aquarium

4. I climbed Ayers Rock on my 25th birthday

&nbs… Read full post »

This is motivated by a translation of the Massachusett word Wichagusscussett, as "The place at the edge of the pouring out". Roughly meaning, the place by the estuary. This is the name of the land between the two estuaries, the Fore River and the Back River that border on Weymouth, Quincy,… Read full post »

I finally got around to watching the first episode of the PBS series We Shall Remain. It tells the story of the early interaction between the English settlers and the native people of coastal New England. Heavily emphasized in the narrative is the Wompanoag tribe,and it’s most hi/… Read full post »

An old one but still a good one. I made this version based on a couple of others I found on line. I hope it helps you out of the next problem you may encounter.

It is written permanently in ink 

taken from soft sketches to bold color 

from where is the need to own this image? 

from where is the will to bear the needle?

from deeper than the will to bare soft skin 

from somewhere deep enough to offer blood … Read full post »

What was it that I wanted long ago

when I hadn’t yet begun to waste time

Wasn’t it something I wanted to know

about the mountains I had yet to climb?

And were those mountains of my own making

or were they set for me by another

Either way they… Read full post »

“Ballardian”  adj) 1. of James Graham Ballard (born 1930), the British novelist, or his works (2) resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels and stories, esp dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological… Read full post »

My sister, my mother, my future ex wife, me

in the hospital room where my mother was dying

We were all in a pretty good mood, considering

I showed my mom pictures

My house, the river, the forrest

then one of me

standing by a cliff,  looking over my shoulder… Read full post »

Who are you calling  a queer?

Fag, homo, queer, pussy, fem, femboy, gay, gayboy. These words were used in place of my name for about four, maybe five years of my life. It began when I entered Jr. high school. To call this miserable containment facility a school in/… Read full post »

This is the time when the mice come

You think you’re so together then there they are

just when you thought you had turned the corner

scratching, biting chewing at the edges 

You can’t see them but you know they are there

You’ve seen their leavings

pulling what you thought you… Read full post »

Hot dogs and Beans with Brown Bread...could be worse

Boston, the land of the bean and hut-dog

where the pup-con is covid in buddah

and the brown bread is dense as a log

What you’ll need:

Opposable thumbs

fire

cerebral cortex (optional)

1 canna beans

1 canna brown bread… Read full post »

Once there was a home

it had people who lived in a house

the people were a family

the house was full of stuff

some of them left

some of them died

some stuff left

some stuff died

the ones that didn’t die hated each other

some of the ones… Read full post »

The maiden Kore ran through fields, fields of flowers blooming

Her mother’s trust was freely given, loving, not consuming

A flower of such beauty caught her eye and held her gaze

She was drawn in and carried off, enraptured, in a daze

At once the… Read full post »

Alone in a tree, silent and still

For whom is the sorrow that brought on this chill?

A pair chase each other from rooftop to tree

Are their calls laughter? It seems so to me

The trio stood ready, awaiting the union

The bells of the church announced holy… Read full post »

When the pieces of the outburst 

have all settled on the floor

and the echo of the shouting 

isn’t ringing anymore

That’s when it’s time to wonder

if there’s any gain at all 

in screaming into empty space 

and flailing at the wall

What brought this on

what… Read full post »