Todd Mercer

Modest Aspirations

My friend the guitarist
brought over an album called
“We Were Dead
Before the Ship Even Sank,”
so we taught ourselves
hooks and solos like those
until the wee hours,
planning the quick rise
of a band we’d form
and later split from
over creative visions
and a strange shortage
of decent weed.


Todd Mercer of the Grand Rapids and “Up North” areas wishes we’d all speak of ourselves in the third person more often.