Incremental Blues



1.



every electric guitar solo he ever played

was a transmission



from God to man from Man

to God from Man

to other men



but now that that transmitter

was a broken



soliloquy of gnarled fingers

composed by a four dollar

fish plate in a diner



south of the city



the static white blue

patter snake

language of

lightning

was rainstorm static

synapse

ghost torture

strangulation



insanity.



his

vacant horsetooth

punch drunk

infantile mouth

now gapes



over whitefish

leavings



why does God destroy a man?



why give him strange wonderous

voices

and a cage for a



soul?



2.



He was just thirty-five years old.



Born an orphan.



There was yet a single woman who pined for him,

wondered if he could possibly



be alive,



doubting it.



His talent was known to her,

as was his curse.



Mute, she lived alone many miles to the east

on a farm in the hills,



fearing all men.



She alone could make him sane

again and whole,



if only he could find her.