banjo – Page 3 – Via Negativa

December 20, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Medicine Show (5): Shackleton’s Banjo

This entry is part 29 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

for R.R., who forwarded the story

Shackleton’s ship trapped in pack ice
went down without its banjo,
that “vital mental medicine” as
he called it, fished out
at the last minute & hauled along
to Elephant Island with the raffish
rest of the crew. Who included
one Leonard Hussey, meteorologist
& cut-up, hired for his quick wit
& repertoire of banjo tunes.
Picture them singing Stephen Foster
over slabs of seal meat, 22 men
confined to a hut with the one
remaining boat for a roof,
the southern stars swimming
over its hull. Picture webbed feet
frying in a pan on New Year’s Day
as the men hopped & shuffled
their cornball best. And years later
when Shackleton returned
with Hussey to the South Atlantic,
on the night he died he asked
for one last tune. Imagine that banjo
pale as a bloodless cheek,
the explorer’s watery gaze.
And in the silence that followed,
shadows from the oil lamp
continuing to dance.

August 6, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Banjo, luna

Inspired by my uncle’s banjo, I spent a couple hours this morning revising some of my banjo poems. I’m beginning to think the series may have a future, but many of the poems still aren’t all they could be. I know because of the slight boredom they inspire in me — the feeling that I’ve had those thoughts too many times before. When I write a poem, I want to encounter at least one thing I’ve never seen before.

After supper, my brother got out his own banjo and played a few tunes. So a day that began with clawhammer ended with bluegrass. Except that wasn’t quite the end, because just after dark someone spotted a newly emerged luna moth on the side of a black walnut tree in the yard. It was just one tree over and one day later than last year’s luna moth. As I watched with a flashlight, a harvestman gangled up with the small, lifeless body of a spider dangling from its mandibles and stopped. The moth took a half-step back and its enormous antennae quivered for a second.

(See also the photo on my sadly neglected photoblog.)

July 19, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Notes

How many notes to self can you take?
A road nobody drives for pleasure.
Scan the dial for something
sung in drawl. Get out & walk.

The older you get, the fewer options
still tempt you: the wet membranes through which
light enters our heads versus the eardrum,
coins in a fountain versus coins in a jar.
And if you want to feel every note
you find a desert, even one small as a banjo head
or unreachable as the moon.
You go to a tattoo shop
& ask them to take dictation
on the parchment of your arm.
Don’t try to explain.
This isn’t that kind of trip.

March 30, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Banjo Origins (3): Jesusland

This entry is part 28 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

A child spotted it tangled in the branches of a tree like a lost kite. In fact, it might have been a lost kite, or perhaps an insufficiently aerodynamic helicopter, or the mummified body of a space alien. The fire department sent a ladder truck to get it down.

What was it? It twanged alarmingly when touched, and this led someone to suggest it might be able to generate healing vibrations. A preacher was sent for.

It had ten strings then, but after careful study, the preacher decided that this was against nature, and ordered half of them removed. After that it never flew again, although it did travel around the desert with a caravan for a few years, following the Grateful Dead.

When it came back, it went down to the shore & began to gather a posse. Things got crazy. A pig farmer accused it of drowning his whole herd. It got thrown out of the church for busking. A man came back from the dead, but he was never quite right again.

It became clear that just getting within earshot of this thing was dangerous. People were cured of conditions they didn’t even know they had, such as separation anxiety, agoraphobia & intermittent explosive disorder. The doctors & therapists began to feel threatened, so they got together & bribed a member of its entourage to call Homeland Security and denounce it as a terrorist.

An agent came out, took one look & laughed. You people need to get up into the mountains more often, he said. Where I come from, every backyard has a banjo tree.

March 19, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Sugar Baby

This entry is part 27 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

I had total recall. I was
loitering at a strip mall
on the outskirts of town,
replaying Dock Boggs’
“Sugar Baby” in my head
note for note as I heard it
the first time, before I knew
what was coming next—
the red rocking chair,
the every dime.
Streetlights flickered on,
& they were a new kind
of streetlight that turned people
transparent, like ghosts
as they hurried from car
to store & store to car.
Every third person
was talking to someone
in their hand, saying
I’m in the parking lot &
Do you want the plain rice
or the fried?
I noticed there were those
who said honey
& those who said sugar,
but white or brown, they all
had something sticky
to keep solitude at bay.
I began wishing
I’d heard the song
from the master himself
so I could taste it too,
raw & unrefined.
I wouldn’t have to take
rides in cop cars.
My feet would find
their way to some
sweet home.

March 12, 2010 by Dave Bonta

The Silent Banjo

This entry is part 26 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

The silent banjo leans against the wall
like a movie gangster, casual, coiled,
ready for some chin music.

The silent banjo may or may not
be in tune—& in what tuning, who knows?
To some, this makes it alluring.
Its neck is straight, like a mute swan
culled by a marksman.

The silent banjo is silent because
it has seen too much.

The silent banjo is silent because
no one remembers how to listen.

Approach the silent banjo as you would
any other apocryphon:
brandishing the one true book of matches
& saying in your best Hollywood voice,
The jig is up.

March 2, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Medicine Show (4): A Spell to Ward Off Banjos

This entry is part 25 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

Fill a soup spoon with salt
& lower it into the Atlantic
singing: Dance, sailor,
dance with your captain,
your head’s too heavy,
your body’s too thin.
When the salt is gone
say in a loud voice
Are you thirsty now?
& wait for a gull to say Yes.
Walk backwards so
the incoming tide can’t follow
your footsteps home.

Repeat daily.
If banjos persist,
see a licensed hoodoo man.

February 26, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Pete Seeger and Majora Carter: “Don’t say it can’t be done”

You can also watch this video on its page at This Brave Nation.

A wonderful conversation between two environmental activists. I love that Pete gets the whole film crew singing along at the end. Good ol’ Pete. The only wince-worthy moment for me was when Pete repeated the tired and ubiquitous quote from Margaret Mead about a small number of thoughtful, committed people making a difference.

Here’s an interesting fact about that quote, though: my dad is actually the one who originally discovered it and put it into circulation. Back in the late 80s, my parents were very active in our local Audubon chapter, heading up an International Issues Committee to bring attention to the destruction of the rainforests in the global South. I am not sure how much credit we can take for bringing that issue into the mainstream consciousness, but National Audubon leaders took a great interest in the committee and sought to replicate it in other chapters. We collected second-hand binoculars to send to environmentalists in Central America, Peru and the Philippines, among various and sundry other good deeds, and we prepared educational materials to share with schools and civic groups around here: slideshows, exhibits, pamphlets and the like.

It was in one of those pamphlets that Dad first deployed the now-famous quote. He had been reading a great deal of classic anthropological works at the time, including the works of Margaret Mead. The trouble is that he quite uncharacteristically (for a reference librarian) failed to include a proper citation for the quote — and no amount of searching since has ever turned it up. Which Mead book is it from? He says he says no idea. And really, we only have his word for it that he didn’t just make the quote up himself. In any event, someone at National Audubon liked it well enough to put it in their own propaganda, and it took off from there, spreading like a contagion through environmentalist and activist circles. Small groups of citizens, thoughtful and committed or otherwise, have been using it to bolster their self-esteem ever since.

February 24, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Banjo Proverbs

This entry is part 23 of 34 in the series Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

A banjo is clamorous:
it is simple, & knows nothing.

Banjos make a mock at sin,
but among the righteous there is favor.

It is sport to a banjo to do mischief,
but a man of understanding has wisdom.

He that begets a banjo does so to his sorrow,
& the father of a banjo has no joy.

He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind,
& the banjo shall be servant to the wise of heart.

As snow in summer & as rain in harvest,
so honor & a banjo don’t mix.

A dream comes from a crowd of troubles
& a banjo’s melody comes from a crowd of notes.

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,
so is the music of the banjo.

A banjo’s strings enter into contention
& its head invites a beating.

A stone is heavy, a sandbag strains your arms,
but a banjo’s wrath is heavier than them both.

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise
than for a man to hear the music of banjos.

Go from the presence of a banjo
when you perceive not the notes of knowledge in it.

As a dog returns to his vomit,
so a banjo player returns to his banjo.

Forsake the banjo & live,
& go in the way of understanding.

February 9, 2010 by Dave Bonta

Scruggs Style

Our only god the clock
has the face of a banjo
& three efficient fingers.
On the weekends we get
behind its wheel & go.
Drunk & loud, you want
everything to clatter apart
at once: breakdown! But
we’re out of the mountains,
so it’s full speed ahead,
boys — rewind & play.
When Earl says the word,
the snow will return to the sky.