The Blues

Inspired by the poems of Langston Hughes and the twists and turns of life

Slow drums weep with shattered souls.
Whitewashed piano keys clink like ice in the empty glass alone at the bar.
Acoustic guitar strings pluck tears from the lonely silence
that drifts over the barren wood floor like fog on dead moors.
A deep, black voice of the Deep South
confesses his sorrows to a sparse crowd.

I can almost hum along.
My heart beats the same depressing notes.
I know every word from harsh experience.
The singer ain't got nothin' to live for but the cigarette
left for dead in the ashtray on the piano.
I've got less.

We both know this song:
the coarse rhythm of rejection,
the familiar chord of "let's still be friends."
It's been sung by every poet and by every man,
but it feels like I'm the only one in the world
who could possibly feel this wretched.
It always feels like this, like an ulcer

devouring me from the inside out.

The melody drones on and the chorus runs in circles.
It's fitting for my mood.
His voice never loses its purpose and never wavers.
Neither of us can get the girl out of our heads
or out of our dreams.

I never stray from the blues.
The blues understand me.
I leave a dollar in the tip jar on the way out