A true fan of rock and roll
never quits. They sleep
fire and wake up smoldering.
They know more about crunchy
than soothing. They throw horns
on their hands like they were
born to it. They are forever
explaining it, them, others.

A true fan of rock and roll
sits inside an explosive shell
they built from the shards
of a yearning felt in childhood
and never adequately expressed
until they discovered sex and maybe
drugs, which gave them permission
to yearn forth and yarn long stories
about meeting this hero or that one
on a bus behind a club in Denmark
or Columbus, Ohio.

A true fan of rock and roll
dies young, or dies old. They end upside
a cone of fire that spun out,
or they end quietly like a sputter
from a ill-packed firework. They end
never talking to their kids about it —
wistful, picking up the sticks one time
in a guitar store, maybe they’ve got
a story, maybe not, but it stays tight
within them, tight as a death
they imagined — a shooting star
gone quiet, pills in the hand,
a gun in the hand at age twenty-six;
all the rage at last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T