Saturday, January 14, 2023

TOURING THE GALAXIES WITH JEFF BECK

by Mary K O’Melveny




A Fender Stratocaster

rides like a space ship

follow those sounds 

around the room

up up up  past the ceiling 

over the roof

way past tree lines

above ragged craggy peaks

beats blues  bolero  buzz

crying to the moon

everything reverberates

as we rise like astronauts

soaring past everyone

Les Paul  Hendrix  Clapton  

as we fly high  higher

wah wah wah wah

 

chords climb  croon  caress

slide  sweep sing sigh 

slow  slip  soar 

rumble  race  rave

we follow the stars 

as they glow silver gold

platinum  plutonium  

pandemonium

we jump through nebulas  

stratospheres

galaxies  bend  shapeshift

 everything we ever knew

lies behind us

as we watch light bend

wah wah wah wah



Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY.  Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her most recent poetry collection is Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum, just out from Kelsay Books. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.