I Hear Music

Brass

Now and again, sandwiched between

some jingle I heard in 1962 and choice scoops

of American Pie, warm brass pools

across the lid and runs down the sides

of the bubbling still that cooks the shine

of my inner soundtrack-always on

sometimes loud, the DJ, goddamn him

a chimp turned loose in the broadcast booth. 

But sooner or later once he’s wrung dry  

In The Year 2525 and tired of the game

of water boarding me with the theme from

The Patty Duke Show, resonant brass

the color of Piedmont honey swells melting

in my glass on a warm May afternoon

a flugelhorn and a couple of cornets

cupping the sun in their bells.

It Takes A Lot To Laugh

Last Days of Steam

Dad had a laugh that road a goddamn

head of steam, ate track like candy.  

Fireman stripped to the waist, his railroad

boots planted astride the gap between

yawning coal car and straining engine

fat brass gauges sweating through the climbing

numbers, yawing needles pushing into

the tender red.  Incandescent tongues

through the open door of the firebox

licking the engineers gripping toes clean

greasy sausages broiled in steely skulls

perfuming the swirling cab. 

Stoker was the job to have in the maw

of the hive amid a cloud of angry bees

fine wings alight.  Better that than tied

to the tracks where we all took our turn

eyes crossed on the looming cowcatcher.

  

Hand Writing On The Wall

Warm Up Act

I wonder if the warm up act shifting

foot to foot in the black chute below

the stage took time to scan the signatures

scrawled in Sharpie on the high white walls

all that accreted guano from darting

blind nocturnal egos.  Putting myself

in his shoes (too business casual

for a hungry singer/songwriter!)

comparative height would have drawn

my attention:  Ritchie Havens to

John Prine, Roger McGuinn to Emmylou

Billy Bragg to Lou or Peter Berryman.

Loudon Wainwright III must have stood

on a bar stool, Iris Dement penned

graceful as a song.  No more than a kid

alone in the lights, negotiating

the same three kindly chords, the very air

of the Ark carved deep with their worn grooves

he polished his stage presence, sang

the words to songs he wrote accompanied

by his own veering bat gorging on our

polite applause.   The headliners waited

relaxed atop thousands of shows, at ease

beneath faded looping autographs

pining to slip, even for a moment

into those stiff new shoes or perhaps quietly

thankful for their well tooled boots.

Silver Lake

Learning To Clean Fish

You pluck a blue gill from the white bucket

teaming with fish suspended in lazy

pirouette, eyes gone black, cool skin warming

in a lifeless cylinder of city water. 

Knee to knee with an uncle thumbing

the keen edge of a blade, neatly framed

in a kitchen window giving out

on the lake taut and leaking cobalt

in the wake of a sinking August sun. 

Plump lozenge arranged on newsprint canvas

perfumes the dome of yellow light with tales

of decay spawned by filthy glaciers stealing

over the fresh gouge of Lake Superior.

Flex the wrist below table’s edge to keep

the angle fine, feathering your knife

as you go, a quiver of flesh beneath

a curl of skin peeled clean with only

the merest hint of gleaming finality. 

Before it’s lost I press this leaf between

the swollen pages of the book I keep

at hand, fingering the glass tilting

empty by this chair, lake lapping my toes. 

Publication

Breaker Bar appears as Sunday Poem in 3 Quarks Daily.

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/

Publication

Epigraph Magazine publishes 3 poems by Dave Hardin in their latest issue:

http://www.epigraphmagazine.com/issue-two.html

Family history

Pigeon Forge

The mountains remember strewn sea bed

shouldered skyward, tilted peaks like grand pianos

upended in empty concert halls

corners scoured, rounded tones muffled

under ancient blanketing mist

drawing them through the gaps, up and over

keeping to the rivers, mountains

trailing apace over their left shoulders.

My people, then:   generations rising

before the sun cleared the mountains

pissing into empty JFG coffee cans

in the wee small hours

feeding stray dogs grey breakfast scraps

babies, hands, sons lost to the relentless grinding maw

toeing the narrow ledge of fickle red clay

Winston-Salem hungry for the next harvest

smoking in damp knots in the godless seam

between Sunday school and Sunday service

a blister of motels, outlet malls and chains

moving good country cookin’ rising

overnight in a seeping pox

scabbing over under the watchful eye

of the mountains dissolving wordless

into rivers, their secrets safe.