Howlin’ Wolf opened a door
in his chest
and something enormous
said hi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bear informed
that rent
was due Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Microphone should have been
wearing protective clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later
Captain Beefheart
heard the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn’t knock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dragged desert sand,
and unidentified animals
behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His voice sounded
like Howlin’ Wolf’s voice
left overnight in the Mojave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then Tom Waits <\/p>\n\n\n\n
carrying a piano
that had fallen down the stairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He too heard the ancient instruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make it not beautiful, but necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three different throats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some inherit melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some phrasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These inherited permission<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to let the human voice
stop behaving
like a human voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has to sound
like nobody else
could possibly
have survived making it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howlin’ Wolf opened a doorin his chestand something enormoussaid hi. A bear informedthat rentwas due Tuesday. Microphone should have beenwearing protective clothing. Years laterCaptain Beefheartheard the door. He didn’t knock. […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[902],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}