Series: Breakdown: The Banjo Poems

found poem from Cox News Service

A 63-year-old man bludgeoned his wife to death
yesterday morning with a pair of banjos, deputies said.

“I’ve been an officer for 30 years, and that’s
the first banjo killing I’ve seen,” said
Miami County Chief Deputy Charles Price.
Edward Benson has been charged with aggravated murder
and was being held in the Miami County Jail in lieu
of $50,000 cash bond. Mr. Price said

Mr. Benson beat his wife, Katie, with the musical instruments
in their home about 5 a.m. “She was beaten with
a banjo in the head. When it was destroyed,
a second banjo was used,” Mr. Price said.

The woman died en route to Stouder
Memorial Hospital in Troy. She suffered
massive head injuries, Mr. Price said.

Authorities aren’t sure what led
to the beating. Mr. Price said

deputies hadn’t had any other domestic
violence complaints at the home in recent years.
Deputies were dispatched to the scene at 5:01 a.m.
after Mr. Benson phoned 911, saying

his wife was in need of paramedics.
Mr. Benson also immediately called an attorney, who
arrived at the scene and advised him not to answer
investigators’ questions. Neighbors said

they didn’t hear any disturbances from
the home yesterday. They were awakened
by deputies. Ralph Wolfe, whose house is
in front of the Bensons’, said

Mr. Benson had told him he played the banjo
in a bluegrass band. The Bensons had seven adult children
and many grandchildren. They lived alone.
Mr. Benson had medical problems that prevented him
from working, deputies and neighbors said.

Round peg in a round hole:
too cozy! It only needs to relax
the slightest bit & the whole
song fails, like a machine
with one slipped gear.

We hold our breaths then
for the single-string walk,
up up up up to pitch. Ah!
And the tune clatters back to life
with a whoop. (One hates to see
John Hardy get away.)

Rare as an heirloom,
particular as an orchid,
miraculous as spring water
flowing from a tap
& durable as a razor strop
is the banjo player’s ear.
It’s the only instrument
in the band that can’t
break down.

It’s like walking in the dark
or chewing on a good-luck tooth:
a map doesn’t always help
& no vowel can be trusted.
Which is why the Israelites
dispensed with both. But
we have lived here in Canaan
so long, we’ve forgotten
about ties & collars
& all the other uses to which
a neck can be put. Jubilee
comes every day at noon, now,
& the Adam’s apple never falls
far before bouncing back.
Goats can get by, I swear,
on the notes no one else sings.
It’s like the glass ball
in an antique lightning rod—
its highest aspiration is
to break free. The night itself
doesn’t need more than
a few hardy katydids
to throb. Who are we
that we should fret
over bars of brass?

I could’ve been
many things—doctor,
lawyer, beggarman, CEO—
but not a banjo. They stopped
taking applications
the moment I was born.
Though a few months earlier,
a big-headed embryo in
the womb, I might’ve had
at least a fat chance.
What a headline that
would’ve made for
the Weekly World News!
Woman Gives Birth to Banjo.
My life might’ve become
a Stuart Little-like quest,
riding the rails north
toward the great bear,
the cosmic gourd.
Ah, the tailored furs
I’d have worn, the round
houses I’d have inhabited,
built from snow!
The moon & sun would’ve
circled in the sky,
unwilling to set. The land
would’ve glistened like
a shaman’s hide drum
for conversing with the dead.
And the dead like all emigrants
would’ve babbled incoherently
from the other side,
unable to send back
the right medicine
for our breakdowns, & we
still unready to abandon
our mother tongues.

A road travelled every day
soon comes unhitched from the horizon.
You can switch roads or you can dance in place.

The fiddle player says:
I like to stare out the car window
& dream about staying put & growing roots.
You can dance in place or you can jam.

The banjo player says:
I never learn the tune as a whole, only its parts.
I remember the one little thing that’s different
& the rest takes care of itself.
You just keep jamming until something jells.

Watch on Vimeo

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.

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.