Alonetone Features: montgomeru

Ben Montgomery trotted from the field, his glove in triumphant hand, hanging loosely, for he knew he could not drop it and that things, once in his grasp, were destined or doomed to remain there until he no longer wished them to.

Bob Dylan rings in his ears as he stands up from the dream, spits and looks out the window. Winter has come over the New Mexican high country but the trees are planning things.

It has been a long time since that afternoon on the field. The epiphany of that day has remained a secret to all but a few, the few who have turned off their eyes and lain back beyond the pillows and listened to his trumpet cutting visions in the darkness.

He picks up his guitar and finds the right chords. The rhythm threatens to overtake the steady beat of nature but there is no one there to stop him. He begins to sing. His voice trembles at the lead and falls in behind the notes, as if pushing them along.

There was a woman of ideas, in roles of Rasputin, a warm tongue for the hemophiliac prince, lost to stands of trees, in a line down to up, the temple in the jungle where poor men’s prayers were answered as they always will be, with silence.

There are hundreds of songs, hidden but for the few that he held until the need to hold them had left and let parade out before the others in clothes of their own choosing.

There were the nights in smoky rooms, lampposts out the window, the stage beneath his shoes, the horn something to breathe through where the music came easy like the shrugs of conversations or a wink, well planned, with no one to judge its intent.

There is beauty in his voice, feigned confusion in his songs, as if he knows something which I don’t. And as I listen with my mouth turned up at the edges, I wonder if the future will bring freedom, where we might step out of the corners, and ask him what it is.

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