Ballad For Chet

for Chet Atkins (June 20, 1924 - June 30, 2001). Rest in peace.

 

I checked the headlines just the other day.
They told me you had put down your guitar.
They said that you had gone and passed away.
The sun that rose is now a falling star.
And as I sit here strumming my guitar
I realize that pain is now a lay.
The music that once healed now leaves a scar.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

Like myself you hailed from Tennessee.
Who knew where that glad guitar would lead?
Your laughing lute was clearly filled with glee
when you played "Summertime" with Jerry Reed.
And everyone that knew you just agreed
that your humility would find the way.
Your picking style was all that you would need.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

Will anybody ever really know
why we were blessed with such a genius?
On every fret where your deft hands would go
you always made it look the easiest.
The music that you made was always blessed,
but now your magic hands have turned to clay.
The music's over. You have gone to rest.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

I'm just too sad. The music is no comfort.
I wish that yesterday was still today.
The music that I play just makes me hurt.
I put down my guitar. I can not play.

 

The Gods Themselves

I have met the gods. I have made table with the gods themselves.

I drank their honey mead in a starry dynamo of night

with the moon on our faces like second hand sunbeams made anew.

I saw their best minds destroyed by madness

and I crossed oceans of time to find them.

I saw mending walls,

five kings and good nights marred by ungentleness.

I sang of the gods.

I gave praise to the gods:

the gods who planted real toads in their imaginary garden trips,

who broke on through to the other side,

who were both sung and unsung,

who died forgotten in flop houses and gutters

and drank too much while the sun went down and came up again,

who burned their wounds like old dry garbage

while murdering men and owning wives,

who made the blackbirds rough today,

who sang for their countrymen and died with their countrymen,

who circled Hell and told the tale,

who glowed the frozen waters with their rainy raindew

and made mad magic in the middle of this song's lament,

who sacrificed their sense of self for a sense of self and a song of self,

and who asked the hard questions to which no one knows the answers,

not even the gods themselves:

for them and only them I sing this my heart's hearty libation

for which the gods themselves give praise.

- 2/24/2014