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Front Man
Poems by Brian Fanelli
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Excerpts
Music Lessons
After I froze at tryouts, bumbled assists, bricked
every layup, father suggested music.
I bought a guitar with a chipped neck
under $200, Sunburst Harmony hanging
on the wall of the Steamtown Trading Post.
Start a band, said Dad. Grow your hair
like I did when I was bassist for Black Dog.
Wail like Hendrix. Woo women with Beatles songs.
The next day I took my first lesson.
Six months later, I loved the name
Buzzcocks, a band my friend Mike
blared from his dented Nissan as he
pulled me to punk shows—
pits exploding as we leapt on stage.
At lessons I still played the 12-bar blues
for my gray-haired teacher in cowboy boots,
who winced whenever he played a soulful riff.
Teach me Johnny Ramone’s style, I said,
every track on London Calling.
He said, This week Hendrix, next week Floyd,
man, rock with some actual blues riffs.
I flubbed every note, left early ever week until he taught me
songs I practiced until my fingers bled,
until my guitar screamed
from a stack of deafening Marshalls.
My first show, my teacher and father stood
at the edge of the pit where tattooed arms flailed.
We test drove our songs through their ears—
bass note booms, thwack of a steady snare,
distorted chords launched from my guitar.
This isn’t the Beatles or Floyd, said father.
Feedback howled in my ears
before a crowd of new fans that cheered,
roared, screamed our names by the set’s end.
My First Tattoo
I snuck past mother
baking cookies in the kitchen,
found a hoodie to hide
my forearm that itched, ached and bled
from the tattooed picture—Clash’s
Paul Simonon bent low, his bass raised,
ready to be smashed—the London Calling cover,
first punk album I’d bought
from the used bin,
songs that made me
want to stand on a sweat-soaked stage.
When mother caught me sneering
in the mirror, sleeve rolled up,
fist raised high, she screamed,
You wasted money to scar your skin!
Father stomped upstairs, gripped my arm and roared,
Is this how you spent the money
you promised us for rent?
I yanked my arm free, rushed downstairs,
slammed the door and escaped
from a house where I woke to the groan
of floorboards from father’s heavy steps,
as he barked about finding a real job.
I fled in a van full of guitars and amps,
ready for the next gig,
the permanent split.
How to Remember Him
Forget the swollen knees, the limp that slowed
his pale feet across the kitchen floor to counters
and cupboards stuffed with orange pill bottles.
Do not think of his hands, stiff and folded across a still
chest. Remember the legs that carried his burly body
up ladders all day to roofs. Remember those hands
calloused from a hammer’s handle, how they
placed your small body on broad shoulders
dusted with woodchips.
Remember the acres of grass to cut,
the green John Deere you bobbed on as a boy,
chores you and your brothers will finish now.
Do not leave the porch swing to sway
alone in the wind. Sit there with your mother.
Remember how your father stood on the porch,
puffed a smoke at the day’s end.
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