Guitar

 

Guitar

 

If there’s an F Hole, then a foreign object lay concealed –

well, there wasn’t and there was – a little victory

in an arousing sweet and sour musk,

something to keep, breathe in deep, to make you feel

good on those bitter Scottish Winter nights.

There’s a cheap blue transistor radio; a record player, too –

a hand me down after they’d bought something new.

You’d lift the teak veneer plywood lid

and stack your old MFP and Contour knock offs,

bought cheap from Woolworths

and she’d say the mono needle would wreck the grooves,

skip tracks, repeat and stick, locked in by use,

but she was wrong – and one by one, they’d clatter,

clack-drop needled as they toppled onto the spinning platter.

He was no conjurer, was he? Put a plug, you’d entreat,

and dodge the flying fish or feet that would greet

such an impertinent request. Still, Uncle Fred

accepted the challenge and gladly hooked you up.

But the best and worst of times by far, an ancient guitar

she’d donated; its repaired neck, steel strings, over-raised nut

that caused many a bruise and threatened deep cuts

as you tried in vain to shape a chord.

That time she’d caught you miming one day,

shook scoffing head, said why you don’t learn to play

is beyond her. But, then again, many things were.

Eventually it stood it in a corner waiting better times,

and concealed there in nylon, buried deep inside a soundhole –

something for the weekend, you know?