Drumming Armageddon

George Drew

Description

"Often it is said of contemporary music that it's the soundtrack of our lives. If so, Drumming Armageddon is a poetic rendering of that soundtrack: Rock, Country, Jazz, Pop, Folk, The Blues-they're the genres comprising it, and they all are present in this collection. The poems pay homage to the artists-Dylan, Clapton, Lennon, Crow, The Beatles, Elvis-and track the poet's personal musical biography: his experiences and memories the music both relates to and marks. The poems, like the music, have plenty of swagger. Finally, though, they remind us that, at their best, poetry is music, music poetry"--

Sujets

• Poetry
• American

Informations

• Publié par: Madville Publishing
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781948692359
• Langue: English

Extrait

D RUMMING A RMAGEDDON
Also by George Drew
Toads in a Poisoned Tank
The Horse s Name Was Physics
American Cool
The Hand That Rounded Peter s Dome
The View from Jackass Hill
Down Dirty
Pastoral Habits: New and Selected Poems
Fancy s Orphan
Chapbooks
So Many Bones (Poems of Russia)
D RUMMING A RMAGEDDON
George Drew
Copyright © 2020 by George Drew All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
Requests for permission to reprint or reuse material from this work should be sent to:
 Permissions  Madville Publishing  PO Box 358  Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Acknowledgements:
Grateful thanks to the following journals for poems that appeared originally in them:
• Atticus Review : “Early Morning at the West Side Y”
• Chautauqua Literary Journal : “Easter at the Café Destino” (Part 4 of “Quantum Dickering”)
• Literary Matters (ALSCW) : “Second Fiddle”
• The Magnolia Review : “Don’t Blame Me (A Country Tune)”
• The Schuylkill Valley Journal : “The Eyes of Frank Orsini,” ( Part 1 of “Friday Night at Caffe Lena”)
• Stone Canoe : “Listening to Country on the Tarmac at O’Hare”
• Vine Leaves Literary Journal : “Ain’t You Lucky?”
And special thanks to Baron Wormser, whose reading of his poem “Jerry Lee Lewis at Nuremberg” one night in Brattleboro, Vermont inspired the poems in section 2.
For Ken Gaines, Michael Jerling, Rick Kunz, Glenn Raucher, Bob Warren & Claude Wooley, men of music.
And in memory of Lena Spencer, and in honor of her creation and legacy, Caffe Lena.

Cover Design: Randall Drew Author Photo: Rick Kunz ISBN: 978-1-948692-34-2 Paper, 978-1-948692-35-9 ebook Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936690
I promise to sing while the termite gnaws.
-John Amen
Contents
1.
The Word Swagger
On Another Epic Trip Around the Sun
Oatmeal
The Blues are Like a Shoelace
The Sensible Daddy Blues
Albert and Stevie Ray on PBS
Second Fiddle
Listening to the Blues Six Miles Up
Listening to Country on the Tarmac at O Hare
Don t Blame Me (A Country Tune)
The Sheryl Crow I Mean
Missing Randy Travis by a Country Mile
Easter at the Caf Destino
Friday Night at Caffe Lena
Peter the Magic Seer
Ain t You Lucky?
2.
The Rolling Stones Poem
Jiving Jimmy Clanton
I, Too, Thought Eric Clapton was God
Roy Orbison in Machu Picchu
Why I m Sad About the Death of Paul Revere
The Poem About The Beatles
The Man Who Wanted to be Carlos Santana
No Other Wizard: Ziggy Stardust in St. Peter s Celestial Rehab Center
Elvis Sighting in the Arthur Crudup Old Age Home
Really, Elton
3.
Strange Entanglements
Early Morning at the West Side Y
The Day After Ray Manzarek Died
Ode to Billy Joel
Ode to Chuck E. Berry
Sorry, Rod
John Lennon in a Lamborghini
Love Me Do, Baby, Love Me Do
The Fab Four in Frost Country
Twenty-Seven
Drumming Armageddon
Who Remembers Herbie?
I Know You re in Detroit
Tuning the Radio
Bovine Bop
About the Author
D RUMMING A RMAGEDDON
1.
THE WORD SWAGGER
Swagger is a nice word most
especially when there is a deficit of swagger.
Swagger is what you crave,
like the full tilt grit of Janis Joplin,
or the guttural smolder of James Brown.
Swagger is a flood of Elvis lookalikes
in Las Vegas-it s that glitzy, that raw.
Swagger is a mouth harp, a fiddle,
it s Ginger Baker in a bluegrass band.
Swagger is getting back your bite
like Jerry Lee after the world
has kicked you in the teeth.
Swagger is a nice word after good ,
but swagger is even nicer after bad .
Swagger is what you have left
when the world has nothing left to give.
Swagger is a bray without a mule.
ON ANOTHER EPIC TRIP AROUND THE SUN
When I turned sixty I was with my kinfolk
in Mississippi, in Grenada, Mississippi to be exact,
boozing it up in a Country Music juke joint.
I was sixty and I was dancing with Jan,
my brother s Queen of the Line Dance wife,
and I was dancing with my once upon a time
Queen of the Jitterbug Aunt Joyce, and more than anyone
I was dancing with my Slow Dance Goddess, Mama.
Now Mama and Aunt Joyce are gone,
my brother s fighting bladder cancer, Jan
nearly died from a bad heart, and she
and my brother don t dance anymore.
And here I am, on the verge of turning three
score and ten in Poestenkill, New York,
and what am I doing?-sitting with my feet up
in front of the tv listening to Emmylou Harris sing
her heart out about Poncho s being laid low.
What s it like? my wiseass friends will ask
tomorrow and for a few tomorrows after that.
Exactly like turning sixty, I ll answer-threats
of absence then, threats of absence ahead.
For now, after Emmylou fades out and credits scroll
down tv screens in Poestenkill, New York,
I ll lift myself from my chair, insert my favorite
Robert Cray cd, and I ll dance. Dance until I drop.
OATMEAL
Outside the New York winter turns the world
white, brownstones burly thugs in the early
morning light, the eight steps leading down
to the Italian bully s slick and treacherous,
and inside up three flights in our apartment
Mama s in the kitchen with the radio set
on Arthur Godfrey playing his stupid ukulele
and like sleet scratching on a window singing,
and Mama warm and doughy as the biscuits
browning in the oven measuring out just
the right amount of sugar, adding in milk,
and stirring oh the little yellow rafts of butter
in the thick and bubbling glop of Quaker s Oats.
Mama in the kitchen getting it right, getting it right.