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He Could Play His Guitar

just like ringing a bell, a sound

that carries clean across the decades

to where I laze on a sunny afternoon

in late winter, licks I fend off

half-heartedly, only to give in in

the end.  If I only had a Fender

Telecaster with an old tube amplifier,

K model Lansing speakers crowding

the dog’s bed, I would plug in,

wade into the days final rays

streaming through the window, my axe

lit up like J. Robert Oppenheimer

boiling in the glow of the Trinity test.   

I’m sure the dog would loft a lighter 

to the wind milled power chord

I’d sustain in a kabuki

of feedback, baptizing the pickups

in a Jordan River of looped amplification,

touching off a small fire moments

before smashing everything to kindling.   

My audience demands an encore so I open

my book in the waning light and leave her

wagging for more, “Now I am become Death,

the destroyer of worlds,” echoing in the empty hall.