I came to them in middle age
the Ryman and the Opry
plangent plainspun songs
guitars with plaintive strings
family faith and flag
the anthems threading lyrics
penned to Nashville’s sound
this homely fusion blending
opera gospel blues and folk
verse-chorus-verse-refrain
laid down upon a simplified
progression three chords
dressed with drawl and twang
it parses pain and hardship
sins of pride grave wounds
of psychic injury incurred
by trying climbing falling
trying rising all to just get
knocked down flat again
it’s music made of leather
land and love and life it
finds the noble in our flaws
and celebrates small victories
it sings to me and I sing back
what else could I want better
from my radio than that
Nashville
All posts tagged Nashville
vagrants and vagabonds
tramp without leaving
so much as a footprint
in whindust of railroad beds
peripatetic gray phantoms
pedestrian journeyers
trekking from alley to alley
propelled by the turns in
the weather of whims
unnoticed by privilege
they carry their meager
estates on their backs
never owning a need
for a lock or a key keeping
sane if not safe mumbling
songs to themselves
music raised from mean
circumstance root-grown
resigned to serial failure
only to fall further victim
to those who will cleverly
plagiarize misery balladeer
bandits who turn these
poor stories to fortune
and twang under spotlights
bejeweling the stage of
the famed Grand Ole Opry
but on second thought
maybe this process
redeems itself broadcasting
voices of indigence
not likely otherwise heard
in the salons aloof disengaged
and exceeding respectable
quotients of Barbary ethics