chewing on a cigar stub

                                  
 

Until the end of the blues
faith is easy like Tylenol - like

God

when he wears  a Mastadon t-shirt
and tattered Levi's

he slides down a throat
smooth with the single malt

and the only stress is on the first syllable
"mmmmmmm."

Then the last string unstrung
rings out, the crash subsides.

the great iamb, hangs on all four-fours

God

it's all over. Repentance unremembered,
prayers, passion and the long buzz

of the amp - like an epilogue
wasting away in the middle of the book.

Silence is the intermission
nothing defined, and a riff
repeated like a cool white lie.

God

the groupies watch him rip
the black cotton from his chest

endure the ritual of the room
behind the stage
and all that jazz.

Scotch reverberates
in my esophagus

Until,

God

much later, when I hear a blackbird
bye bye

bye bye.