American Life in Poetry
Patrick Phillips lives in Brooklyn, but in every city, town and village, and at every crossroads, there’s an old guitar. Here’s one from “Elegy for a Broken Machine,” a fine book from Alfred A. Knopf.
The Guitar
It came with those scratches
from all their belt buckles,
palm-dark with their sweat
like the stock of a gun:
an arc of pickmarks cut
clear through the lacquer
where all the players before me
once strummed – once
thumbed these same latches
where it sleeps in green velvet.
Once sang, as I sing, the old songs.
There’s no end, there’s no end
to this world, everlasting.
We crumble to dust in its arms.
Poem copyright 2015 by Patrick Phillips, from “Elegy for a Broken Machine” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015) and reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. American Life in Poetry is supported by the Poetry Foundation and the English department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.