I bought a guitar last week. By no means a spontaneous purchase, I’d been thinking about it for a couple of decades, even more seriously over the past year, or two.

I know myself too well to even think I could rush into a decision like this. A guitar requires commitment, and patience, and attention. You see, I am a Gemini and often plans, goals, or interests can waiver slightly or rapidly move from one thing to another. A passion one day can be a pain in the ass the next week.

A guitar is something to be appreciated.

It’s not that I don’t have some experience with a guitar. I took lessons a few times at different stages of my life. I was keenly interested in the instrument, up until I discovered the drums. After that, my kit was all that mattered.

Drums were the perfect instrument for teenage aggression but you learn, after a while, that they are limited. They are crucial for keeping the beat but require other instruments to be truly effective. Drums, on their own, are nothing but noisy. You can’t take your drums to a campfire sing-along or sweetly serenade your girlfriend. In fact, you can’t just pick them up and take them anywhere. Anytime.

I sold my drums decades ago. I suppose I sold my drums when I grew up. Since then, I’ve always wanted a guitar. I’ve always wanted to create beautiful noise.

I. Have. Always. Loved. Music.

With more time on my hands these days, like everybody else, it suddenly became important for me to pick up the guitar (again). I set a budget and began my search, clicking through the used ads and buy and sell groups. Music stores, or pawnshops, were not an option in these pandemic days.

I bought a German instrument, from the same decade as me. It’s got more than a few scuffs, scratches and scrapes, and needs a couple of adjustments and a new set of strings. But it is, or was, a quality instrument.

In my hands it felt perfect, for me.

I even remembered how to tune it, and most of the open string chords came back to me. Now, my fingers have not stretched like that in years, and the muscle movement (or memory) will take some time. But I, like everybody else, seem to have a little more time on my hands.

This guitar offers a promise. It is an inspiration. It might even be a distraction, but it’s been a long time since I’ve made some music of my own.

   Wednesday sits naked
           and ordinary
               waiting

   between the bookends of social Saturday
   and restive Sunday. The day is
         little more

   than a cluster of hours or a stop on the
   treadmill. Indecisive and
        lonely

   nobody chooses a Wednesday. Nothing
   happens
             on a Wednesday

   and it’s the same each week.

© 2014 j,g, lewis

Take these humble hearts,
those who trust, perchance, too much,
the ones who now shelter themselves
from the agony which lingers
from trying; from hoping; from
believing there could be more.
 
Heathens, yes, for lack of a more apt word
but neither an infidel, nor a fool.
Where trust is too much, there is faith
without discretion. There remains a
longing few can see, or realize,
for they need to believe.
 
See these unwilling victims
not for what they have not been, but for
each tiny gesture, shameless notion, and
act of empathy, however inferred.
Allow them to create, leave them
to their ways. Let them be.
 
Teach them, these broken souls,
not to look for the lesson, but to accept
the graceless guidance oft shone into
clotted shadows. Knowingly they will
expand and contract in self-preservation,
self-examination, and sorrow.
 
It is there, in seclusion, where errors in
understanding take on perspective. There,
those humble hearts, may come back
to being. Each carries a pulse. They bleed
silently and remorsefully. They have loved
you before, and may again.
 

©2017 j.g. lewis

The radio no longer crackles
as it used to do
with
the lightening,
as
it happens.
Through the darkness
a voice calls out, Pagliaro singing to the broken and the lame.
Rain, rain,
rain showers.

The radio crackled in the night
sharp-edged static
then a stinging silence
before the thunder,
not but a few heartbeats.
The sky
opens up.
Thunder and lightening, touches the earth, as you feel shame.
Rain, rain,
rain showers.

The radio plays to the lonely
as it always has.
The moon
cowers behind vengeful clouds.
She, partially broken, is vulnerable
like you.
Still not there.
Unable to protect, as you thought she could, from all the pain.
Rain, rain,
rain showers.

The radio no longer crackles
across the airwaves.
Emotions, still fragile,
Shatter
in the rain.
No one is to blame.
Strengthen my faith.
Let me live again. No longer broken, no longer tame. Not again.
Rain, rain,
rain showers.


© 2015 j.g. lewis

They don’t make radios, or write songs, like they did in 1971. Michel Pagliaro still rocks