Four Chord Wonder

Plucking the strings her careful fingers
Mask the energy smoldering
Underneath her skin
She is wired and off somewhere in her head
She can’t speak
But she does sing
As the strings bend and twang
Like the wild trees swaying in tandem
To the side of the old grey house
Where inside a light green room
A sunburnt orange lamp flickers,
And the reel-to-reel tapes whir
Late into the night as her
Maple guitar makes the sounds
That give the colors in her head
The language they need
Leading them on to seed
The words, the melodies, the songs,
As they pour out like they do, a nourishment
Of sorts, for herself and
Then later
Friends, associates, her family, her past
Her present, her audience, her everything
She writes this way always after
Working her way
Through the pounding driving waves
She swims through every morning
The sea brine clinging to her skull
The salt feeding her and clearing out
Her mindscape, sweeping the debris away
The way it does, leaving her breathless
And blank
Until another song arrives
Tapping her on the shoulder