Heard and Not Seen

Heard and Not Seen

© 2015 by Gary Lee Joyner

What kind of guitar do I like?

Do you mean a certain brand or style?

Or one particular fetish object?

Listen

Listen

A guitar needs to stay out of my way

A guitar must not get in my way

Transparent

As soon as I notice it I don’t like it

I like to make love in the dark

The touch that isn’t there

The touch that’s so elemental

It may not even be there

Listen

Listen

Here’s the truth

Here’s the deal

This is how it is

It may not have the romance you’re looking for

But listen

Listen

I’ve been married to guitars for 48 years

No divorce in sight

Three things become clear over that length of time

1.     You now look like each other. (Check out Segovia at 90)

2.     It’s hard to be in the same room together for any length of time (ignoring each other helps)

3.     You accept that you are stuck with each other for the duration

OK, four things

4.     Don’t you touch her without asking
I’m standing right here for god sakes

Listen again

As we both know

If she ever did leave

I would sit every night at an open window

With a cold-burning candle

Ready to guide her back home

Complicated, isn't it?

Snow Never Stops Falling

SNOW NEVER STOPS FALLING

©Copyright 2010 by Gary Lee Joyner

The air is warm, but the sky cold gray

We finally rise to face the day

Search for the hint of a hopeful ray

But the Snow Never Stops Falling

Collecting in boxes on silver chains

Across dead grass and sidewalk stains

Hiding memories of summer rains

The Snow Never Stops Falling

Canvas faces surround us here

Faded paint blurred by tears

Unblinking eyes, a hint of fear

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Snow that falls this slowly

Never touches the ground

The earth takes it into her mouth

And swallows without a sound

She’ll gently use her tongue

To guide its journey down

Come back to this bed of flannel sheets

Or leave me alone to sleep in peace

To dream in a world of imagined feats

Because the Snow Never Stops Falling

A lion crawled into my room

Sniffing like a dog lost in a tomb

Before slipping away at the first scent of doom

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Here’s a soul that’s bleeding blue

Like faded ink in an old tattoo

Can we bring back color and make things new

Will the snow ever stop falling

Snow that falls this slowly

Never touches the ground

The earth takes it into her mouth

And swallows without a sound

She’ll gently use her tongue

To guide its journey down

One walks out, another steps in

A moment of relief and then

Take a breath, begin again

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Carl Jung With a Bone In His Nose

The job for artists and poets today is to dream for a society that’s forgotten how to dream. We’re failing miserably. We have preachers, not poets. Preaching kills dreams. Telling others to think like us is the easy way out. It’s for simpletons.  Direct force creates resistance. Meanwhile corporate media gods treat us like puppets on strings with cartoon images of shouting, ranting, raving lunatics of vulgarity on a soapbox. Can you say Poetry Slam? Or the other caricature—a limp-wristed, tea-sipping, simpering whisperer of lavender words crawling out of a dusty lair to bore us to death. Neither one is of any use to real people except in mockery.

Our education system does a damn good job of installing a poetry deflector shield for life.

We need real dreamers, real dreams, witch doctors who find our fears and desires and bring them to light—display them in all their multicolored, frightening, lustful power. We are thirsting for Carl Jung with a bone in his nose, sweat pouring down his naked bulging belly, beating the dirt in a primal rhythm with his dusty feet, a dripping red paintbrush in one hand, a stone symbol of the subterranean Lord Priapus in the other, singing loudly and off-key about the foul thing he saw fall from the sky onto a tall, thin steeple.

That’s what we need right now. Leave your application and a resume at the door.