Don’t get me wrong

 

            I love the smoke and flashing lights

            A bass line that can nail you to the floor

            Drums that turn the spine to sponge

            And the lightning antics of a

            Many-fingered lead who’s juiced his strings

 

            It takes audacity to strut

            A fretted instrument

            Onstage

 

            Yet even in the buzz and sway of an electric bliss

            I sometimes think about

            An old man

            Bald and stooped

            Atop a stool with his

            Unamplified guitar and

            Nothing but

 

            It was long ago I heard his sounds

 

            Unfaded, undiminished

            They still quietly explode

 

            That’s what I call guts