Les Paul ‘s Garage Studio Poem by Andrew Duncan

On the dressing-table with the nail-paint,
Pfleumer's rolled gold skin that stayed
On tips of gold-lipped cigarettes
and never left a leaf of Pharaoh's smile.

Folding the sound, from the foil of scruples,
He sprayed a metal paste on plastic strip
And sold it to BASF for a
Minstrel cotton, a textile vortex.
From jeweller's wire
to suffusions of aniline dye
How small were the ripples
that laid the sand; how big were the
Blusters of musical smoke, from Ludwigshafen
And downstream.

Les Paul stripped the first Ampex that shipped
And added a fourth head
Turned, and walked straight into
Kiss of mirror halves of sound shell
Turned, and walked straight into
Brilliant cocoon from lacquer applique
Turned, and walked straight into
A stretch steady for four mint copies
Turned, and walked straight into
Wekausha, Wisconsin
By the river that runs both ways

By lost time that paints on loops
Aligned, looking down
From a ridge between two patterns,
Cutting silver away
To chase a picture on silver.

Butting sashes of fine shaved sound
A mask of narcissistic blond wood
With American-classic semiconductors pointing thataway
You put germanium together with Germany
That's when you've got
Purposeful distortions of the recorded groove

Linger o phantom as I retouch our mood
Flattering the
Dissipations of a simulacrum,
A dupe of time regained
A garage like that will never end

The Ampex Memphis pickup and fixit man
Says, Why that music won't stick to the tape
Because you haven't lubricated the tape