Post #7 • Sequoia Shaded

Dear readers,

A poem, an excerpt from Cantab Tango, and a quote.

Yours,
David

POEM OF THE WEEK: 

My Fallen Branch 

Sequoias rebirth themselves
when a tree dies—baby trees  
sprout from fallen branches: 
semperviren, ever-mothering.  

If fallen branches sleep, 
where does my branch lie? 
How do branches hatch 
words of wit? Look at my toe—
do you spot a viable zygote? 
Perhaps a simple embryo boy 
waits to translate his energy 
into mine. Is mine wasted on
immoral literary combat, or 
poisoned by the bad fruit of 
moldy sentimental stories? 
Is my impatience stealing 
a sprout that could inspire?  

I find myself pacing the floor, 
phone in hands, thumbing a lyric
without stopping, room-to-room, 
almost falling down the stairs, 
losing my screen to sun flares, 
turning to find the best signal . . . 
turning between couplets and 
stanzas to metaphors and stories, 
turning in search of the fallen 
branch Father dropped so 
long ago, as from heaven, 
semperviren, ever-living, 
ever-lost, ever-searching—
this is my fallen branch, 
this, my fallen branch.  





Cantab Tango Excerpt of the week: 

I pull an old notebook out of my backpack and open to a page. I read.

“In Case of Permanent Pizza Blues.

“What else can I do? My fingers won't bend strings anymore. Guitar saved me when I was a young punk, but not now. Writing a sad song to save a broken heart only works in Nashville. Now she's gone my fingers have nothing to say—their lips stopped moving when she dragged her skin away, ha, ha. Maybe I will die—but I won't die hungry—not yet. I'll die drowning in flavors. Hello, Friendly Pizza, deliver me flavors, kill me with pie. Send me a tomato heart attack with extra cheese—toast crunch my mozzarella. Send me heroin for sissies.”

That's all too much worry about the future.

I fall into a lonely reverie as I watch those Connecticut trees pass us by. I imagine Redwood Man jumping from tree to tree, swinging on Tarzan vines, bobbing his head to native Pomo drums, feeling a tune swell from his lips. A boyhood can die on the vine if you don't revisit its mysterious inspirations from California once in a while—if you don't write it into songs.

With a Yankee fan named Satchmo living with me, will I feel too self-conscious to vegetate on my couch as I watch Red Sox games? Will I feel too self-conscious to wolf down pizza in front of him? No yays for that. What will Frankie think of this? Will she ever bother to write me back from planeta España? Will Satchmo and I write great songs together? That's a million dollar question with no one-dollar answer. Maybe Tony is wrong about this new guy. Too much worry kills any connection to those fading boyhood songs.

I watch Satch take off for the dining car carrying a book about the great Gilberto Gil. I turn to Tony with a question, a regretful question.

“Have we done the right thing to sign Mr. Jones?”

“That would have been a good question three hours ago, Jack. But it's too late now. If Satch breaks parole and goes to prison, you'll have to shoot your pregnant wife and jump off the Tobin bridge—no question about it.”

What? I'm more than a bit shocked to hear that. I think to tell Tony he's a sick human being to reference the Charles Stuart affair right now, but I'm too overwhelmed by trying to stifle an evil laugh. I manage to stifle it but I realize Tony has already considered the manhunt and bet the mortgage on it. Maybe I should become more fiscally responsible. Maybe Tony is my daddy, Ms Rachel Therapist? Maybe I should be grateful, Ms Rachel, but I'm pissed off now.

“I don't know how good a chance it is to invest in him, Tony. And maybe it's a million-to-one we break even with him—but there's no pressure on Satchmo—all he has to do is make music.”

Tony shakes his head. I wish I knew the plans he has for our music group to keep himself so smug.

“But all the pressure's on me because I have to be his bandmate, his co-songwriter, his big brother, his angry father, his employer, his landlord, his banker, his guitarist—and now his parole officer, too? Not sure I can handle all that.”

Tony puts way too much smug into a nod.

“You'll do great, Jack. You have to. To invest in an artist—it is taking a chance—but you'll do fine. Hold on it's going to be a wild ride,” he says. “Trust me—we've got to trust our own judgment now, our own authentic choices. Authentic music again. We've got to trust our guy—besides, he was your choice, so if he fails it's all your fault.”

“What? Am I supposed to be solely responsible for Satch, then? Is that a good choice for me, man? I'm overwhelmed by this. I can't be that responsible. Am I supposed to be his sponsor, too? I feel like the drug dealer for Jimi Hendrix who feels pressure to not sell to him and, oh, yeah, my side gig is President of The United States. Too much responsibility, man. Overwhelmed.”

“Exactly your job description, white boy. Responsibility. Write great songs or jump off the Tobin Bridge—that's an easy choice.”

Tony laughs to see me so queasy with the levels of responsibility I've never accepted before.

I want to spit in his eye right now, but I don't. I don't run either.

“Maybe I'll go after him to make sure he doesn't choke on his baby bottle.”

Tony nods.

I clear my throat.

He looks out the window.

I sigh and put my earbuds in. Forget About It. Things are shit, so write shitty songs—there's always a solution. Forget About It.

Then the song I love and hate starts playing in my ears. I once used to sing it with Carrie, my late soprano southern belle—that's the hate part. Maybe I should delete this damn song from my phone. I glance at Tony—he's mouthing the words. Damn, I must be singing it out loud. He reaches over, yanks my earbuds out, and stands to sing the first verse out loud. I'm in shock when he stands me beside him. I'm in his band so I have to join. The whole train car looks up at us as we sing it together: “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

Tony and I take turns on each verse. I'm amazed as half the car joins in for the chorus. I spot Satchmo in the aisle and wave him over. Tony makes him sing a verse. His voice makes the whole car burst into the song with the “whoo-hoo” parts and they keep time with hand claps. A conductor conducts. An old white lady in rhinestone glasses and two gay businessmen in suits dance up and down the aisle. At the end, everyone applauds.

“If this was a Broadway musical we'd get booed off the stage—that was way too corny—way too corny,” says Tony.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"I fall out of love with my memories to remake them. Then, I imagine writing theatrical dialogue (dramatic word-play that tells a story with few stage directions) but because readers see words on a page, it fools them into thinking it's a novel. The difference between a documentary film and a true story is one writer's imagination grown from a lifetime of reading and facing the moment. A documentary obscures any novelistic story with its black-and-white effect of surfaces, while a writer's imagination paints a story with a full-color palette from four dimensions using the dreams and poorly-understood visions of his characters."

— John P. Mussorgsky