every kiss, every touch
it strums my heartstrings, baby
has it been a day? or an eternity?
time melts when i'm with you

We sit in class,
Playing guitars, singing sweet harmonies.
There's still a month of school to go,
But we're done learning already.

A darkened bar
An old guitar
A stage that once played host
To all the Delta greats and now
to Robert Johnson's Ghost

An old man
His spitting can
A boy from up the coast
Learning how to play the blues
In the home of Johnson's Ghost

You gotta feel the music boy
You sure don't feel too much
Your fingers skipping half the notes
You're playing double dutch
Slide it, let the music meld
That's what folks all want the most
You got to feel it, yes sirree
Like Robert Johnson's Ghost

Five hours passed
Time went fast
But what he learned the most
Was feel the notes
That were wrote
By Robert Johnson's Ghost

The spirit has to fill you
You have to suffer for the blues
You can't come in and play for us
In shiny, brand new shoes

The old man
his spitting can
Made the young boy cry
He played the notes
That Johnson wrote
on the day that Johnson died

Until you feel the music boy
And stop playing double dutch
You got to slide the fingers son
Don't use the guitar as a crutch
Remember where you're playing
And to who it still plays host
You're playing for the netherworld
And Robert Johnson's Ghost

One day is fantastic
the mirror isn't lying
guitar is already in tune
and the clouds are done crying

But when the only friend I have
is the breeze that's fading quick
and the bars were raised
higher than I can jump

It's getting harder to make the choices
that will make my life
the best it can be

Back behind Gianni's bar
The Bluesman sings his tunes
To all the local n'er do wells
And to the stars and to the moon

His voice is coarse as forty grit
His playing smooths it out
He plays upon an orange crate
Comfort is not what he's about

Bluesman, Bluesman play a song
One sung just for me
One that paints pictures in my head
A song that I can see

Buskers, lined the concourse
The street where he was not
This was just a place for tourist fare
He was where the world forgot

His tunes were sung for no one but
Himself and to the air
Out front, that was another world
Bluesman, did not live out there

A crowd has gathered slowly
More of a group, than a real crowd
They heard about the bluesman
And out front was too **** loud

In back, you heard the feelings
Felt the music, heard the strings
You experienced the atmosphere
That a good old bluesman brings

Out of the crowd of fandom
Working his way through the mass
Was a young, tousled haired boy
Everybody let him pass

He rocked in one position
He felt the music ebb and flow
He looked where the notes were airborne
He saw the music go

The bluesman sat and watched him
playing stories, telling tales
Of drunks in old Las Vegas
And of sailors fighting gales

the young boy stood and rocked some
always looking at the air
He wasn't looking at the bluesman
He didn't know that he was there

He walked up to the old man
staring out into the space
that streamed the bluesmans music
right into the young boys face

the bluesman watched intently
As the young lad touched his hand
And he held the bluesmans old guitar
He became a member of the band

The boy moved even closer
If that were possible at all
He was feeling the sweet music
He was having quite a ball

The crowd watched as the bluesman
and the boy became as one
The boy resting his head now
On the guitar, having fun

He couldn't see the bluesman
But the music, it was there
The boy was blind, autistic
He saw the notes that filled the air

The bluesman kept on playing
For that was what the bluesman did
He was playing for the starry sky
And for this wondrous little kid

His mother came and held him
She took the bluesman by the hand
She said thank you for the music
For letting him be in your band

In a voice as smooth as Bourbon
The bluesman told her that her son
Could come and feel the music
The music makes us one

Bluesman, Bluesman play a song
One that's only just for me
Bluesman, Bluesman play a song
That only I can see....

There is red in the forefront of my family crest, I was told
that meant outsiders were not taken lightly. We would pour tar
over castle walls and then many years later down our lungs.
One technique would take longer to die.

Riding a steam engine with a harmonica attached at my chest to make tips
I double-tasked with a guitar while tar burned
on the vestibule. Keeping those who didn’t like the smell out.
The engine burned killing pixie-dust flecks and turning them into cinders.
To Duluth and back
each mouth mimicked.

We used to abide by segregating those who enjoyed torture
and those who didn’t.

An hourglass, tightly bound,
fused grain in streaks;
each one taking on a different stain
giving the illusion of a thousand horizons
stacked to make up a body - empty but aching
to be filled by waves.

From knots wound into a headstock
grows an addiction: a need to revive  
the skin left behind between grooves -
skin which serves to soften the break,
but also feed character to the swell -  
granting purpose to decay.