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I hear the laughter
Echoing through my head
Haha I hear the sarcasm
Floating up from under my bed
No fuzzy monsters
No, the devil instead

It's funny you see
He looks in my eyes
When he tells me the truth
It sounds like lies
Funnier yet that
He smiles so humanly at me
I feel him wearing me down
Until I can't see

Better still
He kills me softly
Without will
He buries me
A whisper of my name
Left still wet on his lips
These deadly, deadly games
Left my soul a fragile wisp

Maybe I should have read the rules more carefully
Just mahogany and horsehide glue,
machine heads and a ***** or two.
Plywood top, solid sides and back,
bone and fake ivory, ebony, and shellac.

Steel and bronze wire, to make her ring.
A well placed sound hole to let her sing.
But for love or money I played here every week,
for 30 years she has earned my keep.

Four star restaurants, or beer soaked bars,
or serenading a lover under summer night stars.
A joyous birthday, sad funeral of a friend,
she's always been there, on one I can depend.

Drunken'- Dancin' New Years Eve bashes,
barbequed sun baked poolside splashes.
St. Valentine's Day love songs, wine and roses,
or a smoky old blues club that never closes.

A nursing home sing along on St. Patty's day,
a hurricane party till we all got blown away.
Christmas carols by soft candlelight,
I've played this guitar most every night.

From Florida to Canada, Vegas to NYC,
from Frank Sinatra, to Conway Twitty.
Zeppelin to Bach, JT to Pink Floyd,
anything to keep me from being employed.

One night in Nashville Greg Allman played on her,
And asked me to join him, oh what an honor.
We make people happy, we bring them together,
when I play on her I am as light as a feather.

Some fell in love, and got married from our tunes,
some nights we're alone on sugar beach dunes.
She's filled up my tip jar, and filled up my heart.
Because of this guitar my life got its start.

I've sat up with her all night, when she was sick,
changed strings a million times, broken many a pick.
Caressed her, strummed her, as she dashed my fears,
cussed her and ****** her, as she tasted my tears.

With her I wooed my lover, until she married me.
She has been my addiction, and she has set me free.
They applaud for me, but she's really the star.
I know it's just wood and wire, but she's my guitar.
###====(==O==== )###====(==O==== ) ###====(==O==== )

*For my Takamine "Lawsuit" I bought in Nashville in 1982.
Harrogate, TN  May 2013
i took a bath in chemicals
making love in dark rooms
while polarized pictures
developed under naked wrists
our bodies
became film strips
projected on grainy screens
scratches
looping in on ourselves
adolescence fit him like
hand me down sweaters
with missing buttons
he was always meant
to not fit
into it.
he watched
her graceless fingers
lace up the battered boots
that rose past her calves.
his eyes hugged the curves
her legs like snaking highways
in hot arizona summers
heat lightening
in his heart.
they all knew the sweaters wouldn't fit.
maybe he knew it too.
because the taste of her was
like holy water
and the child he never knew
i am church
poetry is church
sin is church
art is church
blood is church
lust is church
little girls selling lemonade is church
sundays are church
mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, fridays
saturdays too.
church isn't a place
it isn't anything
but everything
and god sees all
 May 2013 Susan O'Reilly
brooke
i will bloom
in your hands
if you let me.
(c) Brooke Otto
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