Poetry by Karla Linn Merrifield

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​Étude 2-19: To My Guitar


I am a crazy woman, crazy
gal, crazy babe, crazy hottie,
crazy chick, crazy lady,
crazy female modern hominid, 
crazy about you, crazy mad

about you, the instrument of crazy 
unexpected pleasures; you 
in my lap, against my breasts,
under my hands' commands,
and by my fingers crazed alive.

Crazily we tremble, crazily en ensemble 
through these early uneasy 
discoveries, we string together
some semblance of two bodies 
achieving, o, our so crazy music. 

                                            for Joe Craig

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​
Pretty Polly in Trafalmadore


It was night
and it was warm
The sky was ready for a storm
The moon was not so bright
but neither was the candlelight
for the café crowd
who came down Main to Fillmore
to watch the music made
at the coffee house Trafalmadore. 

A big man they called Big Jerome
appeared upon the stage
in his wirerims, his southern drawl
with tales of troubles he had known
He played to earn his nightly wage
in the smoky music hall
singin’ for the rich man, playin’ for the poor
at the downstairs room at old Trafalmadore

He sang for me and Polly
stroked the six-string
with his shiny silver slide
He was sitting on a bar stool
beating rhythms, changing time
Some of Havens he did sing
with Jester Dylan by his side
He did ragtime, jazz and syncopated rhymes
He’d even cut a record long ago and once before
But he never sang so pretty
like he did at old Trafalmadore

God blessed the father of that singing child
God blessed the tree that lent the guitar wood
and the tortoise for his shell
in the finger pick
that strummed so wild
making music oh so well
Pleasin’ Pretty Polly and the crowd
till they broke applause and asked for more
just sittin’ round
in the basement at Trafalmadore

But that was long ago
and far away
in a dark and distant Buffalo
Since then the sky has given into gray
the sun was traded in for snow
I fear the cold
and the winter oh so bold
I wish that things were like before
I wish that me & Polly
could be listening to Big Jerome
at the coffeehouse Trafalmadore

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​

Karla Linn Merrifield has had 800+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. In early 2021, her Half a World of Kisses will be published by Truth Serum Press (Australia) under its new Lindauer Poets imprint. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).

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