I was reading Stephen Burt’s book Belmont this morning while waiting for the trolley, and I was really struck by this wonderful bit of ekphrasis on Alec Soth’s famous photograph. It seems to me that Burt really gets to the root of youthful yearning. He looks at the impossible dreams that keep some people going from day to day. It is true at any age, but it is especially true for those who are young and still defined by the sense of what they might become, of what still feels possible.

(Alec Soth: “Kenny and Bill—Bad Newz, Grand Rapids, Minnesota”)

They tilt their guitars and stare.
Each boy puts one foot toward
Us, one where a trailing wire
Would run to an amplifier
If amplifiers were there.
Bill’s Gibson glitters like ore.
Kenny’s Ibañez hoards

White noise in its black fretboard.
Bill’s double chin shows. Is it fair
To mention his pudge? Kenny’s hair
Gets stuck behind one ear.
Each of the brothers wears
A T-shirt, loose jeans, and a pair
Of bruised high-tops. A pear-

Shaped garbage bag hugs a steel bar.
The big rectangular blur
Behind them looks like the door
To a walk-in refrigerator.
Maybe dad is a restaurateur,
A diner owner who requires
Kenny to spend six hours

A week moving cases of beer,
While Bill chops potatoes, or scours
Grease from the checkerboard floor.
Bill imagines a national tour:
CBGB’s. The Black Cat. Hardcore.
Or metal: the glow and allure
Of arenas and open-air

Pyrotechnics at dusk, a chauffeur.
Or do they hope modestly for
Sideman jobs, L.A. ‘burbs, the secure
Work of studio engineers?
Two boys hold two guitars
In a basement kitchen, and care
What you think of them. Next year

They promise to practice more.
Right now their repertoire
Is six songs, seven chords,
Five originals, and a spare
Reworking of REM’s four-
Minute anthem about a lost car:
“Can’t Get There from Here.”

Alec Soth. USA. Grand Rapids, Minnesota. 2002. Kenny & Bill – Bad Newz, garage band. Courtesy of Magnum Photo