Old Guitars

Old guitars lean on chairs.
Sound boxes curve
like bodies of women.
Blank music paper scatters
to catch notes which fall
from long fingers
with blue knuckles.

Tantric mandalas
of guitar chord spin
for a moment in the air.
Cigarette smoke settles in waves
around un-barbered heads–­
islands in a phantom sea.

Music played urgently
pushes back the void.
The world shaped by it
can be photographed
but not the sound itself.