Guitars in Their Graves

as i listen to the old folk songs
about time and its march onward
i think about our old record player
as it sat on an old wooden cabinet

the cabinet looked as if it could
fall apart if the ground shook
even if for only a second
the music end in one collapsible moment

it was on the living room floor
of my dad's run down mobile home
that i learned what music was
and how to hear the notes

It started out as a listening project
Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Marty Robbins
and Elvis would serenade my entire family
through the truly dark times

though these men are all long gone
i hear the refrains strummed from
old guitars, and shoddily recorded drums
and blasts of horn sections
taken from older soul bands
where they originally belonged

I hear the cries of heaven
as they come through the Zenith stereo
and I hear the wails of dead men
strumming guitars in their graves

and i know that
some day
this same fate
awaits every man
guitar
or
not