The Bands I Used To Love

The bands I used to love
don’t love me anymore —
what am I saying, they don’t
even know me, they might miss me
one day or else they won’t;
they might tune a guitar my way
or sing a note my way but it will
not be the same.

The bands I used to love
grow static to go with the radio
and moss up. The members
grow moss and static up
with marriage or real jobs and they abandon
the music like the texture of the rock
it’s built upon.

The people I once loved to see
play their music don’t care
as I’m gone, as gone as last night’s
gig fee to beer and weed and perhaps
to food — or the odd pedal
for the odd guitar more likely;
they don’t care —
and they shouldn’t.

Their music remains behind
in spite of them. Half the music
is left in my head to fester
or to be preserved more or less
until it decays and changes to my own.
The other half gets lost in the shuffle
until I don’t recognize it except to say
I think I heard it,
once.

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