Member-only story
Evangelism Is Not Poetry
As with most Monday nights, I was at Elixir Tea House waiting to host the poetry circle, as I’ve done for more than two years now. Since many of my poems come in the form of songs, I was picking away on my guitar when the two young men stepped from the hallway and gestured their approval. One of them asked what kind of guitar it was.
“Takamine,” I said. “Her name’s Georgia. Do you play?”
One of them shook his head and pointed to the other one who said he’d been playing for about two years, mostly worship music. He asked me to play a lick.
I thought for a minute, put my pick on the table, and played an original called “Long Crawl”, which turns Georgia into a percussion instrument and turns my knuckles red. People often tell me it’s in the style of Michael Hedges, but I’ve never heard him.
The two young men and the two other poets waiting to share their words remarked on how much they liked the chorus.
It’s a long crawl
from where I am to where I want to be.
And it’s a far cry
from what I feel to what I let you see.
One of the young men remarked on Georgia’s custom paint job and asked about her action. I held her up to show him the distance between strings and fretboard and offered it to him. He took…
