The red velvet curtain is drawn to hide
the street windows and stained glass signage
behind the stage.
In the center of the ceiling, in the shadows,
a mirror ball spins slowly, just in case.
A skeleton piano bares its felt and metal bones.
A Klimt print nude floats in a spray of flowers.
Arrivals show their connections through gestures:
wave and embrace, shoulder-touch and fist-bump,
impromptu conferences of old acquaintances,
table seating shuffles, oz-troupes skipping
toward the lounge.
Beers and cocktails multiply;
pizzas levitate above the tables.
The first band begins.
“It’s tater diggin’ time”
Taylor’s cello sounds round, like a big bass jug.
“Rooster chews tobacco…”
Dumpster Joe’s voice, a warm old clarinet in a tin cup.
“and the hen uses snuff.”
Tevis shakes the slide, the notes are crying birds.
There is a way of being in these songs
that is, still, invention, a mix of earth and light
with new breath. These were not old
when they were first sung. They are not old
to time travelers and similar wizards.
The copper table’s corner pops a button off a vest.
Look, there is the poet with cloche hat and sweater
and plenty of friends.
There is the drummer dressed handsomely shabby,
like an actor playing a dockworker.
Here is the tipsy company you last saw
at the Ukrainian concert,
at the naked bike ride,
at the wedding in the lumberjack camp.
Here is the second band
in another novel arrangement,
the protean ensemble that wrestles with water.
“The river did something to me.”
The two violins play like hawk and eagle,
like wolf and fox, like steelhead and salmon.
“Death is not the end”
Words and motifs are swallowed by textures
architected in realtime, blooming flows of timbre.
A distorted bass vibrates eyeballs.
A crystal mandolin melts into the mirrors.
A vintage art guitar becomes a Manouche machine.
“No no, stop clapping.”
The point of being here is perhaps
not the musical product nor even
the predictable interactive demarcations
of the ritual but rather this river
of conscious, experienced details impossible
to enumerate, these big and little
emerging moments of human sound and soul
made together.
That’s how I take it, anyhow.
The chairs are flipped up in the empty room,
their wooden legs raised like hands of praise.
Friends and musicians loiter by the curb outside,
pet sidewalk dogs, say see you next time,
walk blessed into the night.
Live show prompt:
The Atlantis Lounge / Mississippi Pizza, Portland, Oregon, Oct. 12, 2023
Three for Silver, with Dumpster Joe and the Boys and Tevis Hodge Jr.