Mavis “The Shredder” Stockdale always wanted to be a renowned guitarist,

one who could take the simplest of ideas laid down by the songwriter

and burn the opposition to the outskirts of Hell

and leave audiences gasping in the wake of a lover letter placed chord

and suffering the beauty of a well plucked string.

Above all, Mavis knew she could duel banjo, guitar, mandolin and violin,

but with sad reflection not the cello as she had seen a God play with perfection

one night in the Cavern one night, her hair flowing red but shimmering with depth

as the strings danced to her fingers like spiders on hot coals…but the rest she could duel

with anyone alive and leave them staggering for safety

as note for note and pound for pound, she was the prize fighter of the staunch stage.

 

Mavis though was cursed with no talent for the guitar

and the way she played violin at school was like watching

a tyrant King lose his temper with advisor after advisor

and chucking them off a cliff top, the screams audible

until the final sickening fatal crunch. What she did discover though was she

was adept at knitting and in her mind when she took on the other pensioners

at the Litherland sheltered accommodation home she was on the stage,

her short denim skirt, full of patches, ripped precisely tights and a T. shirt

which proclaimed a fundamental flaw of advertising by-laws and two fingers

lifted in Agincourt style, all combining to hear the knitting needles clack away in time

to the finest that any Blues, Jazz, Rock or Classical genius could lay before her.

 

Clack, clack clack, not so much tuneful memories of noteworthy mention,

more the signal to the start of battle, the firing of cannons taking a baring

and one by one taking down the knitting circle as Mavis thinks of strings,

not stringed things, not vests of socks for grandchildren who

will raise they eyebrows in disgust and wonder when their Nan

will behave like a true human being, not lost in the haze or smoke

and have the young vocalist and drummer fight

over her attentions as she makes sweet perfect love to a guitar

needle and falls to her knees exhausted but with a new jumper created

with fuck yeah emblazoned upon it in record time.

 

Life may have been cruel to the dreamer that was Mavis Stockdale

but she more than made up for it in her dreams.

She was a goddess in curlers and in her world

of seven o’clock nighttimes, she was the act she wanted to be.

No one might have understood, certainly not the music teacher

at school who drummed into her with wicked thought

that she just be content to be alive,

for as she found, her dreams at least kept her alive longer

with each passing guitar solo.

 

Ian D. Hall  2015