Article 3

Toots Hibbert, Toots and the Maytals

A battered Tanglewood acoustic
held in an F shape:

this music, stored as knowledge,
perspires on its surface, aspires
in the contingencies of performance,
but nestles in the bristles of his beard.

All music encodes history,
a set of moves it moves to –
and moves about. But

it can jump histories too,
so that all histories become our
history.

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry

Shamanistic
stones, stars, buttons, gems,
bangles, rings, coral

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp  Grace notes to an unheard melody
legend’s glitzy, kitschy, impediments

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp He carries
a fresh lime in his microphone hand,
the luckiest charm, because living

What’s collected here
is the grain of the voice,

in dog-frequencies, the
growl beneath (or above) the howl.

Each supplement in this economy
is a gratuity for futurity,

the resident meaning. The residue
of this energy is luxury,

moustache
sound on the lip of silence.