State Of The Art

In the XtraMart parking lot
a convertible Saab is bumping.
Don’t recognize
the rhyme or the rhymer
with the stuttering vocal
scratchy as blues era vinyl;
the driver’s buzzcut gleams
in the hard sun, and his sullen face
looks like the right costume
for this play.

On the restroom wall
a good sketch of a sad man
with dollar signs for eyes.
Underneath, a message
in a different pen:

“Bling is the medal you get for accepting your servitude.”

I shit you not when I tell you that Robert Johnson
is playing in a Mercedes at the pump
when I come back outside.

I don’t know
if he expected this
when he came back from the crossroad
and marveled at what he’d bought —
his lean fingers suddenly sparkling and thumping
across the strings,
terrible stories forming on his tongue.

Tags: poems, poetry, meditations, music