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LucyStag
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 11:02 pm Reply with quote
*Cruel Lucille* Joined: 20 Mar 2008 Posts: 1022 Location: Dunno
The Denunciation of Ricky Skaggs From On High

by Steve Scafidi


No more light strumming of your mandolin

and the whispered tone and the sap-

happy featherweight songs in my honor.



Ricky, no more treacly bullshit. I actually

rose up from the dead. Do you understand

what that means exactly? A god. A mother-



trucking god is who you are singing to. Did

Zeus get tickled with a zither and prance

on his tippy-toes like a little girl from outer



space? No. Did my Father get weepy little

valentines and thank-you notes for nothing

but pain and suffering for a thousand years?



He got hollering and screams and fists raised

at the sky. He got rockabilly eventually and

heavy metal and thrash. Listen to Bill Monroe.



He won’t just kiss my ass. Ricky you have

suffered in your life enough to know better

than to sing that stuff. It pains me to hear it.



Stick to what hurts most and mean it. Cut open

something valuable and bleed it. Hang it

upside down and your yard and let it drain



into the grass. My God Ricky I might have to

come down there and show you what I mean.

Don’t make me. I got eyes like laser beams



and a voice like Ralph Stanley but deeper

down darker. No more sweetness Ricky.

You are not a bee. There is a broken down



burning house inside the soul and someone

in the window waves. It is me. Dammit

Ricky, do something. Sing something true



the way you used to. Heaven is not a given.

Make a ladder of what happens to actually

matter to you—blood, strings, and the ear.

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