Still Life with Gibson SG and Unpacked Bags
Harold Whit Williams

Still Life with Gibson SG and Unpacked Bags

My fellow traveler, we should be committed!
Those days without sleep, the studio slog,
That Sisyphean loading out of abused
Equipment, luggage stolen, in the bag
To board a mid-morning London flight.
But what brave heroics, you and I—a Soho
Debut, our Radio One almost-hit,
A Marshall stack up loud to steal the show.
My blood and sweat are soaked into the wood
Around your pickup heart, your wiry veins.
A coat of paint that once was white is yellowed
From cigarette and reefer smoke and stains
Of god knows what. Let's toast the gypsy life,
The near and far misses, the trouble and strife.

Harold Whit Williams

is guitarist for the critically acclaimed rock band Cotton Mather. His newest collection of poems, Backmasking, won the 2013 Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize and is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in early 2014. His first collection, Waiting For The Fire To Go Out, is available from Finishing Line Press, and his poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. He lives in Austin, Texas.