Guitar Poems
Saturday At The Canal
by Gary Soto
I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
School was a sharp check mark in the roll book,
An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team
Was going to win at night. The teachers were
Too close to dying to understand. The hallways
Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,
A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday,
Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves
By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground
And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard
......
Jazz
by Ray Rivera
Jazz! Blue Monk Played by Thelonious Monk, Jazz! Lady Day Singing
'Bout her "Lover Man" Jazz! Stan Getz and the Girl from Ipanema, Hey dig
Jackie Williams, Mr. Cool himself beatin' time on "Caravan" Jazz! Hank
Jones, piano playing is such a delight, have you heard Horace Silver
playing "Song for my Father" or Billy Taylor play "Ray's Tune" as only he can. Jazz! Lester Young leaps in with his cool, cool sound. Jazz! Ella sings 'bout the moon, while Dakota Staton tells you of the late, late show. Jazz! Count Basie is down for the count. Cause Joe Williams has the blues. Jazz! I've got a hunch that's John Bunch on that Edgar Samson tune. Jazz! Have you taken a trip on route 66, with Nat King Cole 'cause if you haven't Duke Ellington will take you for a ride on the A Train. Jazz! Major Holly, Slam Stewart, Milt Hinton, Richard Davis, Ray Brown, Red Mitchele - Can you picture them all playin' together, Jazz! Feet tapping to the drum beat of Papa Jo Jones, Ray Mosca, Cozy Cole, Percy Brice, Art Blakely, Buddy Rich, Louie Belson, Max Roach. The beat goes on and on. Jazz! The guitar of Gene Bertoncini, on a soulful Bossa Nova, Kenny Burrell, Playin' the Blues, Wes doing it his way, the rhythm of Freddy Green. Jazz! Paul Desmond takin'five while Yard Bird Charlie Parker let's you know that now's the time for jazz. There are so many past and present who have given to this great American art from we call Jazz.
The Owl And The Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
......
First Gestures
by Julia Kasdorf
Among the first we learn is good-bye,
your tiny wrist between Dad's forefinger
and thumb forced to wave bye-bye to Mom,
whose hand sails brightly behind a windshield.
Then it's done to make us follow:
in a crowded mall, a woman waves, "Bye,
we're leaving," and her son stands firm
sobbing, until at last he runs after her,
among shoppers drifting like sharks
who must drag their great hulks
......
The Guitar-La Guitarra
by Federico García Lorca
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
......
Guitar is my Witness
by Jesher Samayla
Sitting on the bench,
Holding a Guitar,
Singing my song,
With my spirit and soul.
Holding curved body,
Taking some pluck,
Hitting the notes,
In a special way.
......
Salut Au Monde
by Walt Whitman
O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman!
Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds!
Such join'd unended links, each hook'd to the next!
Each answering all--each sharing the earth with all.
What widens within you, Walt Whitman?
What waves and soils exuding?
What climes? what persons and lands are here?
Who are the infants? some playing, some slumbering?
Who are the girls? who are the married women?
......
Accordion
by Robert William Service
Some carol of the banjo, to its measure keeping time;
Of viol or of lute some make a song.
My battered old accordion, you're worthy of a rhyme,
You've been my friend and comforter so long.
Round half the world I've trotted you, a dozen years or more;
You've given heaps of people lots of fun;
You've set a host of happy feet a-tapping on the floor . . .
Alas! your dancing days are nearly done.
I've played you from the palm-belt to the suburbs of the Pole;
......
Ignorance
by Robert William Service
Oh happy he who cannot see
With scientific eyes;
Who does not know how flowers grow,
And is not planet wise;
Content to find with simple mind
Joys as they are:
To whom a rose is just a rose,
A star--a star.
It is not good, I deem, to brood
......
Seville
by Robert William Service
My Pa and Ma their honeymoon
Passed in an Andulasian June,
And though produced in Drury Lane,
I must have been conceived in Spain.
Now having lapsed from fair estate,
A coster's is my sorry fate;
Yet on my barrow lo! I wheel
The golden harvest of Saville.
"Sweet Spanish oranges!" I cry.
......
