One last time, my forgotten friend,
poise your calloused hands
and dig your battered heels into the dirt.
Left behind by the new world.
The others, glam dolls and pulpit idols,
have all long gone.
I watch as you reach the top,
as a slow, hazy blues chord from a distant, rusty axe
reverberates the revelry and woe of your age.
You pause. No one will ever know
the world from up there.
The words to hymns you mouth to pass the time.
You are neither the movement of the sun
nor the rising and falling of waves.
You are just a man.
Whistling, impenitently, well-worn
songs of freedom to pass the time.
It is time. You head down,
one last time.
The lights go up
on a lone microphone.
A stage. A gathering of souls,
street-weary strangers to sanctuary.
An opening riff. Strident.
Sturm und Drang:
rattle and hum,
sound and fury,
helter skelter,
ultraelectromagneticjam,
oh, well, whatever, never mind.
Sing to them of the secrets of the rocks.
Sing to them of straddling truth and conceit,
infatuation with fate,
and horse-hugging yea-sayers.
Sing to them of the end of roads,
the twilight of the gods,
and renewed reckonings with light.
Twisting, shouting. Roaring. Sing.
