100 Blue Words

My tongue’s thick as 
a vintage guitar neck.
Speech scented with whisky,
the Devil’s sweat. Give me any topic
and my opinion comes out
with bent notes. My whole world view
is a flatted fourth string,
a little bit of matchbook in its nut-slot
to keep it from buzzing against the frets;
pawn shop tickets in the cheap case
tell a story of loss and gain. Put plain:
I’m a man of blue words and I don’t think
a thing has gone wrong in my life
that twelve bars and a crossed road
couldn’t fix or at least make pretty.