Red Hills

Ears ears what you listen to breath burns
down the pipe we all have our licks doubt out
low simmer and we all do our licking in a pressure
cooker I had to be licked the bottom boils
and then the bottom falls

out mind makes out of the licks. Don’t
play the same its own connections but
rooted thing twice. When in doubt in the earth
and body felt-covered mallet heads strike
a cherry wood shell making that

deep timbre listen to the hills lay out.
We’re in the red hills how the notes meet each
other in a mansion don’t play space before
in the basement. There ears musicality ain’t
never no second audience banana people

to technique done sticks booed roll across
us off hammered the stage
long time ago. We metal and the metal sings listen
as the soul glistens heavy when we out there.
We be smokin. When we play, it be meltdown.












Daniel Godston teaches poetry to young people through The Center for Community Arts Partnerships and Snow City Arts Foundation. His writings have appeared in Chase Park, Versal, Drunken Boat, 580 Split, Kyoto Journal, after hours, Moria, and other publications. His poem “Mask to Skin to Blood to Heart to Bone and Back” was nominated by the editors of 580 Split for the Pushcart Prize. The italicized words in “Red Hills” are quotes by Douglas Ewart.






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