Late Synchronicity in Purple

I'd put it off for years but was finally setting

pen to paper yesterday morning on a piece
called "Breakfast," about the tunes my father played
on the family stereo every morning as I readied
for grade school. About how odd psychedelic sounds
of Hendrix and his upside down guitar hammered
permanently into my mental inner ears as a kid
along with King, and Benson, and The Beatles.
I was tempted to sail on with that line of love, but
it wasn't time yet,
.....................I thought, to write about how
my very first album was your 1999 mystery
I hoarded away as a middle schooler convinced
no one knew I possessed it, wearing it out on my
record player with headphones securing me safely
away through my confusing puberty, "D.M.S.R."
played over and over preparing me for my first real,
though innocent date, a year later. How by the time
Purple Rain was drenching us, we were ready
for the sexed up soundtrack to our high school lives,
for the most obvious prom theme. How during
all this fascination with the constancy of fashion,
and lyrics, and MTV videos, and artful music,
and personality, and singing style imitation, a thread
of connection linked all the way back my childhood
as I recognized Hendrix in you, the mustachioed frown
when howling away at the blues, that first affectation
I'd noticed.
.............Had I known you were passing through
to some newer unheard of music just sometime before
I was then putting off reminiscing on your being
around when I needed you back then, I can only now
wish I could have been there to at least push the up button
for you on the elevator after handing you your guitar

..............................................................................Larry D. Thacker

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