There are no words for the songs plucked out on the heartstrings
of the melancholy man with deeply sad eyes,
but he sings those songs to the stormy skies
through the tears rolling down his craggy cheeks into the world's oceans,
and those same tears slipping off of the barely beating wings of the tired wrens.

He thinks himself a strange man,
with not a single instrument to his name,
yet known as a musician,
and he breaths out in cold clouds his sorrow,
but the sparrows,
those little birds, let his breaths of freezing billow
roll off of them as easily as the starlight that the sad man can't see.

What a man, so heavyhearted,
who does not know how to play his own heartstrings like a harp,
how to play his heart like a drum,
how to play his brittle ribs like piano keys,
so heavyhearted that he cannot bear to give anything else the weight to exist,
so heavyhearted that the rest of him blows away and he is but a heart,
old and cheerless, without its own reason to exist.

I have a friend who plays guitar
I've worked with thousands ... but none quite like him.
His chord choices, the melodies and the riffs that he plays
They can only come from within.

He's been out living as a big rock star
But that's not quite the world that you'd think.
It's a rugged, rough struggle of perseverance and passion
And your life flashes by in a blink.

He isn't a shredder as are many these days
Never cramming notes where they don't belong.
He is tasteful and creative, a sound so original
His strings envelop the songs.

He has no need to display some arrogant plumage.
He doesn't show off with any thousand-note solos.
He doesn't do intros that are way too long.
His moody style transcends virtuoso.

He is my friend and proven it so
Once guiding me through a valley of black.
Not with his music, although that helped.
He did so with his hand on my back.

A music teacher once told me that
"Music is the silence between notes".
If that is true, then his silence is golden
As I love every song that he's wrote.

So all you pickers, players and shredders
in garages or with gold albums on the wall.
Take a lesson, from this humble man
You needn't over play at all.

But don't think that he is timid or without some flair
Don't make boastful quips that you think are so witty.
If the mood and the moment strikes him just so
He can make that guitar sound like Godzilla destroying a city.

I am so proud to call him my "Brother"
Such a musician, such a friend.
His music and his camaraderie have both touched my soul
and I hope that neither see's end.

he's a masterpiece
  of old regrets and
  lonely nights

she's his picasso --
  painting his undoing
  with every stroke

her fingers careless
  as they brush against
  his pale skin

when she leaves again
  he plucks on his guitar
  a melancholy tune

he's a masterpiece
  of old sadness and
  lonely solitude

I knew from the start
Sweet melodies would follow
His fingers plucked hearts

His fingers tickle
nylon strings, as they gift him
joyful harmonies.


*v.g