There he was,
dressed in satin
sat in
the bridge of his own nose,
fingering
the poetry he threaded through his strings.
His words fell
in waves
of crescendoes, like drops
of syrup, falling
one
after
the
other
onto an empty plate.
He sang about his London moons,
some midnight darling,
a bedroom
that everyone in attendance swore they had known,
too.
He was the troubadour,
the troublemaker,
the messenger of truth -
but he never forgot that the messenger
could be shot,
so he poured
his past into a glass
with a dash
with a dash
of invention,
forgetting which was which
between the sway of the crowd
and the unoccupied corners of the room.
The first time I saw him on stage.
The first time I saw him on stage.
