Slackwater

‘Live – that’s the only word to describe him.
‘Live like the wires in the studio,
‘live like the varied demons in his head.

Memphis beckoned his stay. A shotgun house
his alone home. Solitarily, save
his vivid inner world, he would translate
epic rises and falls in his head to
auditory aesthetics. Melodies,
released from his mind’s prison, perfected
like a carpenter’s precise vision, would
finally be all they were meant to be.

His band – his extra arms and fingers – gone.
He sent them away, gone back to New York,
though Memphis beckoned his stay to refine
what had not been being refined, not for
lack of effort but rather solitude.

So he wrote alone, save his 4-track friend.

Demos were recorded, sent to New York,
received with unadulterated joy.
“Jeff, you’ve truly outdone yourself this time,”
each bandmate said in his own words, or thought,
or at the very least was moved to tears.

So a date was set, May twenty-ninth, when
the glorious musical rendezvous
would, hopefully, craft these rises and falls
into something…perhaps…otherworldly.

So it came. Touchdown at Memphis Airport
to a short ride to the studio to…
something strange…weird vibes…where the hell is Jeff?

Only two men knew where the hell Jeff was – ‘live,
larger than life itself, engulfed by the
powerful, inspiring currents of
a Mississippi slackwater channel.
Fully clothed, fully alive, Jeff swam
his favorite spot. Jeff swam for the moment.
And in this moment a formerly chained,
tortured soul became untethered. Pure bliss.

Roadie Keith Foti, mesmerized, watched on
from the shore with Jeff’s expensive guitar.
And when a passing tugboat’s surging wake
threatened…closer...faster…Keith lunged, saving
that sentimental set of strings and wood.

The hero of the moment, Keith searched for
Jeff’s eyes in the channel…to no avail.
Was this some kind of sick joke? Jeff was gone?
Forever? No, a joke. Jeff was sober.
No drugs, no whiskey. Accidents without
substance don’t happen. “Jeff? JEFF?! WHAT THE HELL?!”

Calls were made, a search party formed, and yet
this tireless effort ended in vain.
There was no Jeff to be found. Anywhere.

...until June sixth when a boated tourist
spotted his carcass. Silence smothered all.

And the prodigious voice that made hairs rise
on the necks of fans and foes alike now
muted like all the cynics said he’d be
when compared to his father. But today,
we remember Jeff Buckley for his soul –
‘live and forceful and persuasive in song,
impulsive and high and free in spirit.