The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get (1973), Joe Walsh & Barnstorm
tribute
my brother ordered
the smoker you drink
the player you get by mail
all the way from america
to genesta road
when he was eleven
with his pocket money
and brought wooden glass walls and doors raindrops in wheat stalks fine chiselled filigree on the stained snuff box misty plains and misty textures a furl of mist stealing round the corner by the iron black lamp post into the lemon-blue morning the anticipation of snow through the full-length frosted-glass door reaching the top of the hill watching the blue veins through the streets like waves birdsong twist in the trees somewhere behind the red-tiled roof ridge wrapped-snare quarter fills sparrow-call uphill in a pine tree amplified by the whole hill relaxed rejoinders to the la-la-la la’s strolling over the woods back to the house
which didn’t just
walk up those steps
to the front door
by themselves
and all because
he’d caught a
silent glimpse of it
on the old grey
whistle test
I should have paid more attention to him
birds wormhole: coffee shop
lemon wormhole: portrait
mist wormhole: ”please me very kind with your practice …’
