Elvis Costello - 2009

those iconic horn rims

receding hair

black shirt with white polka dots

new wave jacket 

a ferocious G chord

singing what’s so funny about peace love and understanding 

we are standing on this

warm Wednesday night

watching

waking

wondering

wisening

and singing along

unafraid to wear our horns

and aim true

Randy Newman - 2007

and then you sang

Louisiana 1927

sky blue shirt  

behind piano

 eyes closed 

and I became an arrow

cutting through time to that basement room

wood panelled with a little tv

and I saw you for the first time

singing this song

         eyes closed  

you were the song  

and I went and wrote my first song

and became the song

washed away forever

Rickie Lee Jones - 2006

stood at the side

right by fence

my chance to see her up close  

plaid skirt

brown vest

long hair

clipped bangs  

cool voice hinting at melody

words more spoken than sung

but with matchless rhythm 

stories of down and out

of aching love

of hot pavement

summer nights in city

of tender people in a hard world  

eyes shining with

intelligence

of fierce understanding

up close

wedding poem #6 - Brian and Dinah

green is growth

life

       summer 

white is clouds drifting

in endless sky 

brown is the solid trunk

of firmly rooted trees 

two hands

with two gold rings

light two candles and move them together

so they share one flame

tied by a circle of green  

playful strings colour harmony  

and then

feast

toast

dance 

ever green

sunday morning - 29 years

I can look at flowers 

small red ones

that tidily line our garden

deep purple petunias

                that anchor old sandbox

playful orange tiger lilies

                so tall and bright

single yellow brown eyed susan

                more beautiful than the name

red roses at the front

and all the others that don’t tell me their names 

and see you

singing my life with colour and beauty

waving wind

catching rain

smiling sun

being love

dancing - 1979

there is this picture of me 

dancing

blue sky over all
horizon of trees

no shirt cut-off shorts
red hat over curls
ticket bracelet

all attention is towards the stage
smiling

and I'm frozen in mid-step
people all around are frozen in the same moment

as if a gorgon had turned us to stone

this is all that is left
music performer forgotten
don't know movements before

or after

joyful motionless dance

there is this picture of me

Steve Forbert - 2005

in this shady grove

that is not shady

sun bearing on bare skin

intense July  

sound bleeding from other stages bothers him

has to adjust his key to match  

stands stage alone

white shirt open at collar

signature curls

harmonica and

scratched scuffed guitar 

voice

not really a voice

a rasp that scrapes at the melodies  

singing

good worlds are hard to find  

this round patch of windless prairie

surrounded by Manitoba woods

is world now  

intense brain

connects

to our brains

 

each inner world merging into

community of worlds

rasping along

in one orbit

around sun

Leon Redbone - 1975

we thought we saw you then

timeless

mystery voice

a refined growl  

glasseshatmoustache

your costume

hiding a boy from Cyprus

who       somehow

found a soul in

ragtime religion  

and we believed

 

stood and

shouted and

cheered and

clapped  

until you finally reappeared

only to light an exploding cigar

creating a legend exploding in our

perceived

timeless mystic memories

Bruce Cockburn sings Mystery - 2006

always so polished and precise

but never like this  

me sitting alone

in open space

far away from stage

dark descending

many had left already 

it was a new song

simple

direct

hair now white

still round glasses

guitar glinting spotlight

black shirt

                rolled up at the sleeves

familiar fingers flashing 

and you sang about

mystery

and grace

and the beauty of gasoline 

and I nodded  

and then you sang

stand up if you think love rules

and I stood up

tears

dripping  

and I knew something

new

and timeless

had flashed in my heart  

and you took me there

mud - circa 1986

we trudge in high tops
ponchos flap rainy grey wind
song      dance counter mud

Don McLean sings Vincent - 1983

lying on blanket 

looking up at dark night sky

stars dazzling eyes with infinite mystery  

and I glide inside

to that place of stillness and truth

that we avoid at all costs  

and there I stop

at the cusp of an adult life stretching out

gazing at the future 

of me and you

and breakfast lunch and dinner

and times of doing 

 

and times of lying on the ground

in wonder at the starry starry panoply

of the lives we create  

with our paints brushes guitars and voices