Bambi (new poem)

This is a rough draft. 

BAMBI

At sixteen eye was 

the Prince of air guitar,

a lavender shimmer birthed

by a purple beacon

and nothing was real except 

your half-laced fingers on six strings—

which would not be boxed in.

Suppose heart as an empty room,

a kind of wooden box.

In the wooden box 

U then called home

there was Our Father’s piano,

forbidden as anything in Leviticus,

still U were bold enough to plink

its ivory keys while he was away.

Until he left like a Gypsy moth 

in the cruelest month.

Before U were mine “Skipper”

U were 12 years old 

and neither boy nor girl,

doe-eyed under the halo of an Afro

and crying to be allowed

to return home from a phone booth,

which is not a wooden box,

even in the dying northern light,   

especially since it lacks

the sound sculpture of pianos,   

even a piano warped 

by the purposed rain of memory.

And to be denied,

to sleep on an Aunt’s couch

or in Bernadette’s basement and hear 

Louisiana tease your tongue

like a bigger kid on the playground

and hear that all soul-sounds

even the bass below, 

can be guitar-sounds

because guitars are wooden boxes

with tuneable strings

on which the Grand Progression 

could one day mean your dovely strut 

up the ladder of the charts.

There is the missing kiss 

of your mother to sing of. 

How she tried to satisfy herself 

in the arms of another man,

her hair falling down

and her heels rising up.

Does down elevate up or up elevate down,

this question ping-pongs

into the paisley swirled sky,  

No matter. Baby, you're a Star!

Grand Marshal of a parade of women,

all that applause drowning out

the insomniac feedback of night.

A sound round as counterfeit Vicodin,

a hurt that craves the 24 keys of dawn.

Neither cocaine nor cold coffee

can hide the soft hammers

of the blue piano on your strings

but now U are an ocean of violets in bloom,

marshaled and amped up

because aren't amps boxes too?

U are amped louder and louder

into Jimi’s rising heir,

portrait of the Artist purple as paradox—

desire hums around your head,

bathes U in a sonic scent,

an untongueable symbol being brushed,

the most Beautiful One,

eyes lined with dark longing

until Daddy’s black piano 

becomes a mere wooden box of air

on an elevated stage,

although not the way

an elevator may sometimes 

be a wooden box. 

The paisley stage is empty now.

Filled with an air of Cloud guitar

the stage is dear and dearly beloved. 

The only home

U could always return to.

Eye never wanted U 2 be 

my beacon, or lover.

Eye only wanted 2 be

some kind of friend.