Articles/Essays – Volume 54, No. 4
Acoustic
Podcast version of this piece.
My devotion never translates to my fingers.
There is something lost.
The scaly chaff of my heart opens my lungs.
I pinch my pic like a quill
what can I scrawl in the dusk?
The eighth notes scream as I harmonize
endless Ds without a u
A whittler stripping the block’s clothes
keeping time at arm’s length
desperate for a revelation.
Em Am7 G D6 D. The progression is eternal.
I believe in the delicate vice on the fret
calluses encroaching on my prints. Their throb,
waking me in the night after a two-hour vesper,
is the closest I will come to purity.
Note: The Dialogue Foundation provides the web format of this article as a courtesy. There may be unintentional differences from the printed version. For citational and bibliographical purposes, please use the printed version or the PDFs provided online and on JSTOR.