Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons
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Kelly Newton (MP3)
Inspiration piece
Old Joe
By Helen Whittaker
Response
he fills
the underpass with music
gnarled hands coaxing notes
from a battered guitar
sometimes
he plays to please the crowd
Free Bird or Smoke on the Water
but mostly he just jams
letting his fingers
dance across the frets
letting the music flow
into him and through him
every evening
as he walks back to the bridge
he passes the guitar shop
with the Gibson Firebird in the window
spotlights pick out
liquid swirls in black and red
frozen beneath a layer of lacquer
as thick as a ten pence piece
Joe presses
his palm against the window
and whistles softly
the Firebird sits mute
tethered by a security leash
caged behind a window grille
while Joe’s old strings
are free to sing
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