Contributor Series 9: If Men Had Ears
Guitar Poem
By Kenneth Karrer
By Kenneth Karrer
They have the keys to life
For those who learn to make them sing.
They’re wood and wire.
Shaped, bent, molded, steamed, pressed, and fired
Mother of pearled,
Fretted
F Holed, inlaid
strung out of sinew from Muscle Shoals to Memphis from Austin to LA
And deep-rooted in 66 all along the freeway.
Hot held in Monterey
Who smashed and lit afire by Jimi’s loving hand
They gently weep.
Dripping sweat mixed with well-worn varnish
Glinting in a Sunburst screaming SRV and
Bending like a wammie bar’s note, they age with time
Resting in
bumper-stickered cases lined with cushioned felt
Like a Cadillac Coffin.
Always carried, never checked.
Sounds of latches are the first licks laid down.
If we’re lucky,
We’ll take them to the grave.
Kenneth Karrer’s most recent poem to appear here was In Flanders Field Revisited.
