Day 3 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

When I first started doing NaPoWriMo consistently in 2012, I used to do little essays on the date to begin the blog post (maybe it was the second year). Here's one on Day 3 in 2013. Third day. 1 + 2 or 2 + 1 (commutative property). As a "word problem" (remember those from grade school — or grammar school, as some of us called it): one plus one plus one. Trinity. Triumvirate. Triumfeminate. Triumgynate. Triumpersonate. Triumwhateverate. Semper ubi sub ubi, yo! ;-) For folks who didn't study Latin in high school: that last sentence semper ubi sub ubi is schoolboy humor for "always where under where." Okay, on to today's prompts. Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “For today's prompt, pick a musical act or artist and either make that the title of your poem or incorporate into the title of your poem; then, write your poem.” Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[w]rite a surreal prose poem. For inspiration, check out Franz Kafka’s collection of short parables (my favorite is “The Green Dragon”).” Carlos Santana and the Snake I heard someone say, “You need to go on on right now or you won’t get on at all.” My heart stopped. I’d dropped some mescaline Jerry Garcia gave me, just two hours before. We thought we had hours to go before getting on stage. The Woodstock people were so disorganized. We weren’t supposed to go on for another ten hours or something. We all headed for the stage. Dave reached for his Fender bass and I grabbed for my Gibson SG. The headstock morphed into a rattlesnake head and tried to bite my hand! Frets and dots on the neck of the guitar changed into a rainbow of blue and gold snakeskin scales. I got hold of the axe and said a prayer as the snake twisted and torqued. “Just help me stay in tune and on time, God.” I said it over and over. On stage, the crowd was a mass of crazy colors, oozing like lava. The sky was a pinwheel of red and white rays emanating from the sun. Angels were floating all over. The guitar snake was still trying to bite me and I wrestled with it as we began to play. All of a sudden, the snake looked me right in the eye and said, “No, pendejo, A minor, A minor!” Me and the snake were surfers . . . no, the snake was the surfboard and I was trying to stay balanced. We were both surfing the music — “Soul Sacrifice” was the amoeba world, galactic and universal. I laughed as Mike started the last fill on the drums. I had stayed in tune and on time, despite and because of my friend, the snake. I hit my last chord. Yes, A minor. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Brandt Cotherman, "Carlos Santana Electric Snakes" I found this art piece on my topic by Brandt Cotherman on his website. This poem is a bit ekphrastic because I borrowed some imagery from his art. I also borrowed some language from a 2019 interview with Carlos Santana about Woodstock in the New York Times, "How Santana Hallucinated Through One of Woodstock’s Best Sets (His Own)." What I wanted to fit into the poem but couldn't was something Carlos said about Woodstock: "That was a beautiful thing that I’ll hold true till the day I leave this planet. I witnessed, with my own eyes and my heart, that people can get along, with unity and harmony. No fights. Share granola or a blanket or whatever. I got to see that humans are capable to coexist with benevolence. That’s why we’re still talking about Woodstock, man." Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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