Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Raphael Uzor Apr 2014
Slipping into my apron,
Hungry in body and soul
Humming as a song played...

I grab my knife and chop-board
Unsure of what to cook
Strange inspirations possess me
Filling me with *****!

My kitchen becomes a stage
In my hands- a plectrum and fretboard
Silver utensils- my live audience!

As I play divine recipes
Strumming master acoustic chords
Chopping fresh, colorful vegetables.

I dash to the remote,
Punch "Repeat" and dash back on stage
Landing on E♭ minor,
Scaling impossible notes,
I slice with razor-sharp plectrum,
On onions and other root chords
My fret arrayed with colors,
Of spinach, lettuce, tomatoes
Carrots, potatoes, olives
Pepper, cabbage and cucumbers.

I hear a thunder of applause
As I ignite the cooker
Butter sizzling in the hot pan
A staccato of sharp notes,
Ready to modulate innocent vegetables
Through spicy aromatic crescendos!


I fight hard to suppress a sneeze,
No sneezing on-stage! Unprofessional!
Multitudes of seconds rush by and…
Voila!!!

I stand for a moment
Salivating, awed at my bravura!
Wishing I could hang it on my wall
Tis beautiful like art
But I can’t eat this cake and have it!

So I dig in…
Heaven and earth kiss for a moment
L U S C I O U S!!!
Luckily, it didn’t taste nauseating
Like my last attempt.

No time for ceremonies
I munch from pan to mouth
Pausing for what may pass for a prayer,
I relish every bite!
Not that I’m a foodie or something,
But nothing beats this combo-
Of good food and soul music.

And yes,
Music is indeed food to the soul!
I devour, in view- the next meal...


© Raphael Uzor
Inspiration came while cooking and listening to Ayo’s And its Supposed to be Love
Tell me I'm not a foodie :-)
Ocho the Owl May 2014
Only on the fretboard
am I comforted anymore

the fretboard is my best friend & companion
the fretboard is my voluptuous lover
the fretboard is my interpreter, confidant & knowledgeable guide
i am lost without it

My crooked path winds on and on
you know where you can find me
Asphyxiophilia Jul 2013
Your fingers traced the curve of my forearm like an atlas that mapped out the route that would lead you back to your heart, but you knew the journey was a labyrinth as complicated as the waterways of veins beneath my skin, so you removed your hand. Instead, your fingers found their familiar solace upon the sturdy neck and trembling strings of your guitar.
You plucked each one intently, running your hand down the edge of the fretboard and feeling each chord reverberating within the empty space of your every capillary.
I moved my gaze to your eyes, the black holes that have always swallowed me whole with the promise of never regurgitating me into bigger pieces than what I was originally.
I found myself reminiscing to a time whenever your eyes were identical to the ground we laid upon the afternoon we first decided to find versions of ourselves within the shapes of the clouds. But ever since, the innocence has slowly seeped from your expression and a stare as hard and cold as stone has taken resisidence in its place.
I allowed my eyes to slowly drift closed and suddenly I began to feel each strum of your fingers within my rib cage, the notes sketching portraits of a love never experienced upon my internal organs.
When you stopped playing, your hand immediately reached for the long-necked glass bottle resting upon the edge of your night stand. You brought it to your lips and tipped your head back, slowly drinking in every bad decision you have ever made and the after-taste that you had begun to crave. It burned your throat like acid, but each swallow was a reminder of just how hollow you had become.
Your fingers found their place once again and I readjusted beneath the weight of your expectations. I draped my legs over your bed like every profession of love that I have never said that hangs from the brim of my lips. My fingers danced across my thighs to the beat of your song, one not as familiar as the one of your unrequited love, but I still managed to dance the same.
And we seemed to lie like that for an eternity, you focused on every chord that never came out wrong like every word you ever said to me, and me basking in the sound of your unspoken promises and confessions just waiting for the day when they become reality.
Kai Jan 2022
Forgot what I searched for to find heaven.
But I know that at the age of seven
I seized my mother’s phone and found a god.
He led me to an arresting world with strings.

Strings that swept your hair the way the wind does
when your ego would reach the sparkling skies.
They touched your heart no matter how heartless.

I refused to blink because if I did
I would miss a second of his gentle
fingers gliding across the maple fretboard.
And no sane person would want to miss that!

Strings danced back and forth as he played a chord.
Oh, his fingers grew sore, but calluses
helped desensitize them from aches and pain.

The instrument he mastered was waiting
to call him master cause’ guitars love how
he manipulates and makes them his slave.
Strings begged for his touch, for sounds they could make.

My eyes felt heavier than dense gym weights.
I mustn’t stop gazing if I want to
stay lost in heaven. So **** riveting!

“School is tomorrow.” “******, I forgot.”
“Give the phone back. Hmm, what are you watching?”
“Heaven.” “What did you say?” “I said heaven.”
Mom didn’t say anything afterward.

A few hours came, she asked for the phone.
I gave it to her, prepared my backpack.
Maybe in a different universe.
I would have proclaimed, “Don’t take the phone back.”
My first encounter with the most remarkable instrument: the guitar.
EC Pollick Jun 2012
Cool kid euphoria with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on is what we all are in the basement of the 50’s house.
Our phones blowing up while we sip whiskey and wine.
Trying to get the attention of the cars on the main road
By handstanding and flashing and cheersing our beers
And we receive our victorious honks.

Guitar clock radio with numbers around the fretboard and Sir Paul smiling and crooked, acid-trippin’ guitarist/violinist/celloist looking product of orange and gold look down upon as our patron saints.
Swingin’ low, Sweet Chariot words stares up at me from the 70’s floral carpet.
Ralph Stanley and Eric Clapton singing solos and duets in my head keep me company as the boys play and figure out key changes.

Painted screen hiding the Etta James microphone stands forgotten in the corner—
As I take in the teals and roses and golds.
Give me a heart shaped box where I can store my love
I fly so high in the world above
I’ll come back down eventually.

Lava lamped water stain engulfs the ceiling. As fingers go up frets
And they go down frets
And they go up frets
And they go down frets.
As you don’t enunciate when you sing.
We all mourn  our fallen brethren, the base of the telecaster with no strings and no head and it weeps silently from its place on the water pipes, hearing his cousins WAAAIIIIILLLLLL.

As Cool kid euphoria is created with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on in the basement of the 50’s house.

We work all day so we can drink all night
Getting high off the drug that is each other
Chain-smoking Pall Malls like it’s our job
Listening to oldies as we shoot the eight ball in the corner pocket.
Garden tools and Lawn Mower parts as a sweet, creepy décor in the dank basement
As we breathe in mold and dust and cigarette smoke.

We are gloriously young.
So *******.
We still think we can change the world.
Not through politics or through fear or by means of war
But by doing just enough to get by and loving everybody for who they are, even the parts or religions or particular ways of life we don’t like,
Because people aren’t what they do or what they believe
They’re who they are.
We still think we can change the world
And Maybe one day, we will

But for now
We’ll just be here,
In the basement of the 50’s house with our pastel colored pants and our Raybans on.
Fah Aug 2013
As a consequence of my conscious decision to rendevouz with self centering mind
the power of words to create , to compose the unheard symphonies of small time intricacies and fast ride hair raising cold brushing feet failing wing taking heart soaring , bone marrow crushing delectable yet disgusting .... it's a strange place , yet made streamlined still by the number of multi dimensional  infinities on the horizon sitting on one window sill one space filled,
known in time,
moment of wondering reason and wondering rhyme

no sordid or morbid tune keeps up to long and even then - feeling is feeling's tune
feeling is feeling undue,

feeling all the while whenst the secret encloses of mind unravel and intertwine
check list.

Fretboard harmonies strike bass line discord to form in own accord relations
and relate to late lives past and on time lives present

always running with time not out of it
in dew dipped grasslands
wild horses run free
dragonflies in hair and silver teeth glimmer against the rising sun

pushing each other to the best we can be , we are just the lost kids, found.
gaping holes in chests that need no name or can't be pinpointed by a single needle
that can't be filled by the love of one
but only a pack
only a tribe

running , 40/40 home .... and this time YOU are my homie , i've already run the distance
made it.

gotta feeling , we are gunna win
all of us, in whatever endeavor we feel - beings of this oh so gracious earth whose abundance is a burning flame within the vast cold depths of spaces in refutable habitat , children who never grow up from the mother earths arms - no need - no need - no need - no need for any more running
we've reached the home

and now ,

it's time to Party!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Irate Watcher Aug 2014
If Rihanna and Bob Marley had a baby,
it would be her. She was as fierce as peace can be.
Born in the suburbs, I had never seen
coffee-colored rastas with caramel tips,
pulled back from a shaven head
into a ponytail.
She skated in an oversized hoodie
across San Marcos square — a watering hole for
porteños playing hippie.
Mad man strummed ukuleles wildly;
couples dancing interpretively; jugglers rode on unicycles,
as if they were all training for a jester convention.
Still, I couldn’t tear my eyes from her
broken strands tied in knots swinging freely.

Her sea-foam stare met my blue gaze.
I looked like a dork; my hair plastered
and sweaty. I wore a black tank top,
waiting for another bus to another city.

She dismissed her band of perros
and grasped my hand, asking me
if I wanted to sleep by the river with her.
It was late so I said yes.
We walked from the yellow lights
of the town square.
She grimaced.

No more bones for starving dogs.

I wasn’t starving, just lost,
a traveler,
dried from a bucketful of adventures,
I dreaded repeating as empty stories
over
and
over
and
over.


O Celia,
you were a coyote wearing a hoodie;
no one could tame you, refracted by the white
light of the moon that embraced each
of your steps by the shrubbery-ridden riverside.
I stumbled as we approached
an embankment sheltered by magic trees,
the glistening water chilled waves to perked ears;
reflections of villagers, we pitched tents together,
tipi-ed by the ritual
of finding niche in transition.
You built the fire; I prepared the mate;
your weary locks whispered callejero wisdom.
Your stories were everything I wanted to say,
but too timid to be.

You were dancing in my basement,
bathing in moonlight *******,
unashamed to say how good the water felt.
You probably lost your virginity in your tent;
shadows of leaves shaking a disturbed night,
unlike I, crying, semi-drunk, wishing I hadn’t.

You actually played the guitar;
you bought it yourself;
it was tied to the skateboard
you drug behind on open roads.
I got a guitar for my birthday after
watching Lindsay Lohan be a rockstar in a movie once.
I was inspired to play for a while.
Then it just sat in my room.

So you taught me your favorite song, Legalizenla
We didn’t even have a porro — you wished we did.
But all I wanted was to memorize those chords
So you listened to me play them out of tune for hours,
pressing my fingers on the fretboard like butter.
Strums shuddered my soul.
You wrote the lyrics in my journal
with the note, con mucho amor.

Now, each time I dust off my guitar,
I warm up with that song  
to remember your vibrations.
Honest opinions here? What do ya'll think?
Debbie Brindley Jun 2018
I love your hands
So beautiful
So strong
The way your fingers dance
upon the fretboard
as you play a song
The tenderness in your fingers
as they caress my cheek
something you always do
before drifting off to sleep
The warmth
of your hand
as I take yours in mine
As we stroll through the bush
birds singing
the weather fine
How gentle they are
As you hold
our grandbaby in your arms
Nurturing
full of love
and always so calm
Playing the guitar
made your hands strong
I love their beautiful shape
your loving fingers long
Never was into hands until I met my husband
Akemi Feb 2016
There’s a body smeared under my finger
Or maybe just dust
Guts pressed into the keyboard
The streetlight across the road is tilted at the top
Wires dangling strangely
They might drop at any moment
And set the neighbour’s flesh on fire
I couldn’t give a ****
Everyone keeps telling me I live in the bourgeois district
There’s a church opposite here
For the past three sundays
I’ve played industrial noise during mass
Hitting my guitar so hard my fingers bleed into the strings
And all along the fretboard
“Sounds like the bowel of a ship”
“Is—is that music?”
Wrists are beginning to collapse in on themselves
Fill the void
Shut shut
Open the windows
Shut shut
Play some Swans
Shut shut
Close the windows
Shut shut
It’s too early
Worthless
It’s too late
Worthless
Look in the mirror
There’s nothing
Look at your father
There’s nothing
Look at your friends
There’s nothing
She’s gone
Far away
She’s gone
Left you
She’s gone
Lost you
She’s gone
Failed you
**** up
Up
Drop out
Out
Take some acid
Acid
Blow your brains out
Out
Emergence:
The philosophy that consciousness arises out of the physical structure of the brain
Scramble it and we’d no longer resemble the same persons
Just vessels hosting multiplicities that alter as they deteriorates
Give me five tabs, then
Spike through the cerebrum
Phineas drunk on the pavement
Gage dead but still walking
1:30pm, February 8th 2016

https://mitakihara.bandcamp.com/track/vessel
You can hear my lovely voice at 8:43
NicoleRuth May 2017
When we're together
It's like escaping to a magical land
Locked in a stuffy room
Our desires reigned recklessly free
Keeping away the harsh realities of our lives
Passionately intertwined as one
In each others own madness

Your fingers are minx like
Dancing across the fretboard with thoughtless grace
Strumming your thoughts through our kisses
With a sharp twinkle in those quiet brown eyes
Every song feels like reliving an old memory
One you plucked fresh from my soul

I love the way cigarettes rest on your lips
A classic addition some would say
But in it I see the self made man you are
The way your fingers elegantly roll tobacco
Baffles my clumsy mind

Could a mortal be so beautifully designed?
Jack Singer Oct 2011
hey, not bad kid.
you been practicing that?
learning all the tricks,
figuring out the secrets,
putting in the hours,
working hard,
doing what you
live for?

I can tell,
and someday,
they'll put your name
up in the big flashing neon lights,
you'll be a superstar,
they'll all love you then,
they'll watch you intently,
gazes fixed and eyes widened.
then you can show them
all about your skill,
your technique,
more flawless than the thoughtless
fingers of a master guitarist
as they dance and flutter
over the fretboard.

because you--
you have ideas
that nobody else has ever thought.
you've got it down!
you can make it
float in the air like a leaf,
wiggle like a worm
wriggling in the mud,
swim like a slow-motion-astronaut
jumping on the moon,
quiver and flip over
like a struggling fish
on the deck of a boat,
spin like a top,
even sprint across the finish line
like a breathless runner.

but none of that,
kid,
is worth ****,
unless you can make it sing.
and i mean fly like a falcon,
effortlessly though the air,
soaring,
beautiful,
mesmerizing.

you have to cram it all,
every emotion, thought,
every piece of piece of this puzzle
that is existence,
and jam into one note,
one step,
one jumpshot,
one stroke of your magic paintbrush
only you can use,
and then,
maybe,
somebody will notice you.

so keep trying kid;
you never had a choice.
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
You know me better than I, better than I know myself; you know me like I want to, like I was my own world's father. A famous goddess, parishioners won't say her name, I wrote letters to her personally, but was never brave enough to greet face to face. There's a type of prose, only intimate partners dare to go, where adjectives take verbs in rounds, and lovers sing each other songs. I've you and you have me, I'm captured by you so lovely, there's nothing I wouldn't do, good or bad, I'd ****** for you- a great vegan harvest, all of everything for my love the goddess.

In a world worshiped by false idols,
Where musicians and actors are modern day deities and neon signs flourese divine promises in magazines and the televangelist newscasters inject the masses with fear and false promises.
Opiated zombies take to the streets and go about their lives sleeping with eyes wide open at screens that have more meaning than their banal lives. But I woke-up long ago looking at the photo of your limitless azure eyes through a photograph. Long before I met you, I knew that one day our paths would cross and we would drive through the desert, deserted towns listening to Townes van Zandt and other musicians that most have only heard of through top 40 covers of their soulful songs.

The cacophony of coyotes, pumas, rattlesnakes and rabbits darting to and fro, in front of our headlights as quartz crystals reflect the full moon light, and Joshua Trees dance beneath the stars while we talk about Morrison, Harrison, Hendrix and the impact they have had on our lives. While most are drunk or dreaming, we are living the ultimate dream. I cannot wake-up to a world without you there-

Beside me and a space pig curled up asleep on the backseat as we trek across the Milky Way.

I smell the fires, their noisome stench fills my nose with the harsh turpentine and piceous smoke, but in the night we cannot see the trees. This fire could be right off our balcony. It could just be a neighbor's barbecue. How can people enjoy eating burnt and coal-battered meat? Your Uncle's neighbor apparently enjoys street meat. He killed a tick-covered deer, while he rode his scooter over the pass at night, and lied, he said he hunted it with his bare hands. Why must men and women and people lie, as if their stories capture more attention if they don't share what actually happened.

Dear you, I love you so. More and more with each passing day, I just hope one day we'll both leave this place, and share our final breaths in the same Earthen place. I promise you I'll share my final resting place so long as it's in a grave. I worry you'll want someone to spread your ashes, on a ski run in Aspen. Can we pretend small creatures live inside our walls, and rule a kingdom somewhere on our second floor, where Fraggles scramble to complete construction, on a network of tunnels.

I told you I would re-propose to you every day, I love you more than words can say. It's unquantifiable, just look beneath my eyelids. There's a man who used to share the hash he smoked, in a cove, somewhere in Venice, where the locals met us.

I'd drink and quaff your humanness, the pulchritude I cannot resist. The splendor you exude in all the passions you choose to do.

Hey you, if you find me here. Let me know if I'm still alive. I've made a wish to live, and be the father of your kids. We sing and laugh and sway, we eat apples and honey and pray, to an invisible god that could disperse all our flaws. And this moon, the one that has shone itself on empty roads, ignites the stars and stares at us shattering this cold. You were made in the image of life, I've been incommunicado but connected your dots. I wish I could color you by numbers, and count the hours we've slumbered.

There's cold-weather dripping from my nose. Where howling wolves and coyotes go. Where elk canter and mule deer pass, and a small boy moose named Bullwinkle waits for his mother to come back. Here is where the spotted marten eats from a rotting corpse, maybe it's a small naked shrew, it's map lines strewn across this town, where tourists think they know us, but they don't know my goddess.

Hey love, I'll never leave you alone. I'll never go to bed before you arrive home. I try and try not to yell, or even raise my voice above the evenings sounds. Do you hear the moose stepping on the frost-laden grass? It must have been starving for it to come this far. I'm learning now I know more about nothing, which I prefer to knowing something.

My hands won't put on the show, I told you I thought I knew. I prefer to be going down, so long as you'll always be around. I could count ten seconds until I realize my sentence. Poor birds fall out of the trees, there wings must have been freezing. I wait for you and I wait for your words. Your heart is made from all the things, I've only recently realized I've seen. Together, forever more. I take my hat off and hold open the door, I kiss your neck and eyelids and enjoy our shared silence. Keep me and never go away, you're worth more than the sky may lead, or the oceans breathe. I won't step, I won't speak, or breathe. Dear goddess, you're the only one I need. I need no one but you. I only need to know that you need me too. And one hour our shadows will meld together, while we wait outside freezing as we wait for summer.

But each season holds its own magic,
A seasonal  zeitgeist where we create our own traditions that supersede the Hallmark holidays that our oligarchies have created to lead people astray from the cohesive love and communal celebrations that our predecessors revered.
Yet each moment is a cause for celebration for you are a part of my life. I cannot wait to call you my wife.

From the moment I awake and feel your warm morning breath on my chest,
I breathe in the perfume of you and kiss you gently on the forehead as you hug me closer and face nuzzle me more deeply.
Each day, more perfect than the last.
I fight sleep because life with you is more splendorous than the culmination of all of my dreams. A symphony and an endless sonnet, fairy tales cannot come close to telling the story of our love.

You show my fingers where to go on the electric guitar strings of the mahogany fretboard of the guitar you gave me for my birthday.
My hands are slowly learning how to the play the notes and lyrics that I conjure in my mind. I cannot wait to play the songs that you inspire my soul to play. We shall sing together - a melodic harmony of a quixotic ambrosia that accompanies the vibrations of my guitar strings filtered through guitar pedals and amplified in warm undertones by the Fender tube amp.
Your bass line keeps pace with the heartbeat of the song as our voices go on
Singing the songs of our adventures
As leather wearing vegans and expedition smokers.

We smoke Marlboro Red Labels to pay homage to our Americana heritage,
As we drive the Prince of Darkness to foreign lands in search of crystalline moments to write, paint, create and sing about the dream we live everyday.
The dream I live with you my dear
,is the one I never want to awake from.
Written between myself and my love Sarah Gray.
Angie S Jun 2017
The last time I felt like this I
was a high school freshman
trying out this new word as if I'd
just heard it.
My mind escapes reality on its own accord
and returns to moments where
your summer brown eyes made
my chocolate brown eyes melt.
The image of your neck gently curving
to listen to music replays in my head
like an old jazz tune,
like I'm a chord holding out for resolution.
I sway in memories of watching
your reflection in the upright piano,
eyeing your hands gliding across
the familiar fretboard,
as I played alongside you.
I am bound to your smile.

I wonder if you've ever had a
love poem written for you?
I wonder if you even think about me?
I wonder if you even know
you inspire me.
Hello! i've been busy.
I went to a jazz summer camp and... I keep thinking about this guy I met there... but I don't even have his last name.
I wrote him three poems and this is the third one.
I'd be really embarrassed if he read this because we literally met a week ago but... I really do wish we talked.
kneedleknees Dec 2016
it is strange that I find you here
unpopulated
w/o a bottle of ***** and orange
juice in backpack
w/o a ukulele in hand with which
I would sing about
drinking alone and my
******* roommates.
with the moon close
to the fretboard
and the electric lit windows
of the residence halls
like constellations
closer.
fingers dance
up and down
the fretboard
a violinist gives voice
to endless frustration
~
lyrics hold
endless
meaning -
damaged souls tangle
themselves in the chords,
******* vitality
as milk from a mother
to
drown out endless
white noise
~
tears roll down cheeks
pale from
lack of sunlight,
glimmering with
tiny flames as
heros conquer the demons
we /wish/ we
had
the bravery
to tackle
A short exploration of some of the outlets people use to get away from their problems.
Flurries of call and response , electric guitar notes
travel over these Oak floors , escaping through an open window
bound for a star , my grandson could quite possibly receive
the songs coda from an extraterrestrial musician yet unknown
I pray for alien language to be music , I've so much to tell ,
, so much hurt to describe , so much passion and understanding
stored in my souls living well
If we could communicate love through a fretboard vocabulary
I would wail
Copyright May 1 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
To the guitarist perusing the fretboard in boring , endless combinations , my ninety dollar ticket for a migraine headache in the back row.. For the artist throwing paint on canvas and decreeing this art I offer my head scratching amusement . To the 'gifted hands of the physician' whirling poor people into the river of bankruptcy I've nothing but scorn ...
To the Garbageman and the 'Street Sweeper' my lifelong admiration ...
For the 'Laborer' and 'Ditch Digger' my endearing praise , 'twould be an honor to have a 'Janitor' occupy the crown of my dinner table on any day !
Copyright March 12 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Leiah Jul 2019
I got my first guitar when I was 10 years old.
It was a navy blue Ibanez from guitar center.
It was used and when I played it
It sounded like a shriek more than anything of music, but it was mine.
I’ll never forget the first time I sat in a soundproofed room at that music school
With Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall, playing the riff of “Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones completely off beat
and thinking to myself that I had found magic.
Back then, metal strings still made my fingers bleed
and I used to forget song formats and my rhythm was horrible no matter how often I used a metronome.

My second guitar was a matte black Jackson with a sharp headstock.
I drew flowers on it with a white sharpie and took out springs in the back
Which made the bridge float until it was almost unplayable.
But I didn’t notice and I didn’t care because it was mine and
I still played with my eyes closed and sang off key
I used to scream the lyrics to Green Day songs and I felt like I knew who I was
I used to be unafraid and though
Posters on the walls were replaced, white walls were painted dark gray somehow that school still felt like home
With music blaring through practice rooms

I think I’m always going to miss the sound of music
Not professional, produced
Not crisp and clean, but raw music played by teenagers who could eat 6 boxes of pizza in 20 minutes.
I remember walking in the rain to the CVS across the street
Joking and laughing
I remember growing up with friends that became a family

My third guitar was a Fender Stratocaster, sea foam green.
I bought it used and the fretboard is chipped but its mine.
Now my hair is its natural, bleak dark brown and I prefer indie to hard rock but I am still me.
And I don’t think I’ll ever become the musician I once wanted to be
But I know that music is seared into my soul
And that’s the only thing that hasn’t changed.
Andrew Rueter Jan 2019
The bass player for Korn
Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu
Plays in a distinctive style
Using the slap bass technique
By down tuning the bass guitar
To the point where there is enough slack in the strings
That they hit the fretboard while playing
Slapping the bass
He also increases the treble significantly
Accentuating a recurring clicking sound throughout their recordings
Some people view this positively
I feel it gives the music more texture
Like putting a little pepper on the song
But some hate it
They say it makes Korn’s music unenjoyable
And annoying
A little clicking noise
Makes their music instantly horrible

For some people it’s never good enough
They will always be listening for your small clicking noises
And demand you change at their whim
Ordering you to tighten your strings until they snap
They say Fieldy *****
They say Fieldy is a ****** bassist
While never putting out any content themselves
So they can throw rocks from the dark
Forcing one to ask themself
Who am I making this art for?
The fickle and ignorant masses
Or the jaded and pretentious elitists?
The answer must be neither
Art must be made for the self
With the hope that others will be able to relate
And whatever your craft is
Some people will appreciate the hard work and dedication
And some people will hear a small clicking sound
You just have to slap their face
With the way you slap your bass
Aryan Srivastava Nov 2020
There in the time, were you. Burning like light and moving like darkness. For being complete is nothing less than nothingness.

Maybe the hair strands are meant to cage the breeze. It is after all not an innocent brush of a passer-by. But a gaze, burning through every book employed to cover art, and every scent used as a decoy. A drizzle of steam on a melting face. An enactment of a blatantly romanticized pull, tugging at every vein to stand out in utter disbelief, what on earth befell the first hand that touched another?

There is a breeze stuck in your hair.
"How?"
Just like a bird begging to be free, although aware that the wilderness will be its death.

Maybe cinders are what birthed most of us. And instead of being cherished, we were set ablaze. And just like a volcano, we forgot how to erupt, we found peace in drifting arms. Although somewhat boiling, we were frozen to fever.

Maybe we aren't showers and sunlight but floods and hurricanes.

I've been searching for a window to a day, when words will have faces. Smudged, smiling and shy. All I found was a peephole to the midnight, when faces won't have words.
We can but touch glass to reminisce the hand held on the bridge behind a poster promising a longer summer

My words need meaning, they said. A profound lack of lustre is ******* the verses dry. The absence of a will to not frame riddles, is murdering every blot of ink in red. A noose hangs low from the title, and reaches the name by the time the sentences end. Every word comes as a punch of flesh on stone, unnecessary. A lucky draw of words thrown about for a prize less lottery.

What is more beautiful than an autumn of mess?
More meaningful than a heartache of happiness,
a nosebleed of ecstasy, a pint of pain with gin and love?
More laborious than saying everything and nothing?

Time is a fretboard.
"How?"
When we kissed, couldn't you hear the first note of the concerto?
An Augmented Villanelle


Long ago **** Taylor quit playing for the Stones
And we got hot stuff at the Memory Motel
Everybody hold up a lighter on your phones!

Then Harvey Mandel got fifteen minutes of fame!
And played fretboard taps into a Seventies shell
But he's back with a highly unauthorized game

It's true, some cover tune classic rock bands are lame
But these guys rock like the end of a Pipeline swell
Then Harvey Mandel gets fifteen minutes of fame!

Tonight I'm looking to see who's wearing crossbones
At Sweetwater where they pour a premium well
Everybody hold up a lighter on your phones!

It's wild, fans are parking in 'no parking' zones
And the young millennial crowd is getting still
Long ago **** Taylor quit playing for the Stones

Look who's back with a highly unauthorized game
Everybody hold up a lighter on your phones!
Once again Hot Stuff gets fifteen minutes of fame
With Rudy & Friends playing hits by the Stones!
Infamous one Apr 22
W22
Lost in the music feeling the groove
Hitting the notes the fussion
Letting go of anger and frustration
Able to connect with the music
Forgetting about the work nonsense
Making music learning by ear
Trying to memorize the fretboard
Take in chord sounds stay in tune
Keep the tempo get the tone right
Harmonize finger placement
Sometimes Starr Feb 2018
you
sitting in the sunlight at your kitchen table
it is around 3 or 4 o clock on a Saturday
cold January Saturday
drinking a chai tea latte
from the coffee shop down the street

your lover, the strong man
who whooshed right past me years ago
brings you a soft warm hug from behind
you smile, half-surprised
and the two of you are beautiful.

me
biking home in the snow
eyes locked into that horizon
blasting a stranger's romance into my ears
feet digging into sweet destiny
doing what i have to do
after i crash landed, crash landed down from you.

worrying that i'll never make it
part of me stuck always in the icy pit of jail
now when i get angry
i curse at the walls of my room
but i still believe, still believe.

lighting up a fretboard, trying to elicit a glow
that would sail me over the horizon
writing and writing and writing.

and we,
we will always be lovers.

even though now we are strangers.
Sometimes Starr Apr 2023
Ya
Ya, the taste of ice cream on his lips
Ya, garlic mustard growing on the ridge
Ya, the good ideas on the fretboard
Ya, I hone the sound of thunder in my hand

Ya, Philadelphia
Ya, Rapunzel let down her hair
Ya, Dipper Riley Marko and Tucker
Ya, Texas

Ya, Pokémon
Ya, al kahul
Ya, Fall Out Boy
Ya, skinny jeans
Ya, asymmetrical hairdo

Ya, Kitty
Ya, Rock and Roll
Ya, the nature preserve
Ya, The Way She Moves

Ya, Mayday Parade
Ya, the Philadelphia Orchestra
Ya, Music Theory Classes
Ya, backpacking by yourself

Ya, Family
Ya, the Museum of Modern Art
Ya, Mount Hoback
Ya, Cimarron NM

Ya, The Wonder Years
Ya, Allen Ginsberg
Ya, The Moon
Ya, the Wissahickon Green Ribbon Trail

Ya, the mansion
Ya, Devil's Pool
Ya, Bloomsburg
Ya, Danville

Ya, Kangaroo
Ya, girlfriend
Ya, Australian licorice

Ya, Gameboy color
Ya, AOL Instant Messenger
Ya, The Killers
Ya, Santa Claus

Ya, Chipotle
Ya,
The chosen
tone deaf
to their fortune

Musicians
their heads
in the sand

The roadies
eat pizza
still frozen

While Angels
play bass
in the band

Indulgence
the pick
on their fretboard

Entranced
by the lure
of the ****

Benighted
the riffs
play without them

Not going
or coming
— just gone

(The New Room: March, 2024)
Dipper Aug 2020
A soft melody I heard you play
You’re fingers danced along the fretboard
A ballerina of song
Your voice was jagged and hoarse
The voice of hurt
But you sang with such beauty
Your fingers bleed as the dance
Spills onto the wood
The steady tempo
Begins to quicken
Your jagged voice cuts deep in my wrist
As the melody grows frantic
And swells to a volume so loud
I wept with joy
Why has your chorus hurt me so

— The End —