Give Them The Finger

            I had a gig yesterday playing bass. It had been some time since my last gig, and my fingers didn’t take well to it. I acquired a blood blister on my index finger. It looks like a red football shaped birthmark.

            After the gig I went out and sang a couple of songs at an open mic. I sang a Sixto Rodriquez song, Crucify Your Mind, and one of my songs, Things Have Gone and Changed. I brought my rack, and played harmonica to fill the space on Things Have Gone and Changed. It went over pretty well considering the audience had no familiarity with the songs.

            I drove to my Thursday hang at the Dresden Room after that. I got into a discussion about politics and road rage. There’s not much difference between the two. They both excite anger, and involve pompous moralizing. I’m right your wrong kind of thing. How can we both be right, and both be wrong. It doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure why I even care to talk about it. We pick a team and we stick to it. I couldn’t help but gloat about my team’s victory. My republican and libertarian friends were pissed. I could see the emotions stirring deep inside them. I think if we were driving they would have flipped me the finger.  

The Thirteenth Poem

I have a goddaughter. She turns thirteen on Thursday. My promise to her as godfather was to write her a poem once a year for her birthday. So far so good. I’ve liked some of the poems I’ve written to her, but others have read like I was fishing for answers on paper. It’s hard to write a three year old a poem, or a seven year old. I’m not sure how I did it. I’m afraid to read them to tell you the truth. I remember the feelings I had while writing them, and having to turn them in on time. I’m a better poet now than I was then. If you do something long enough you’re bound to get better.

            I’m working on this year’s poem, and I’m having trouble with it. It’s reading funny. It’s choppy. It’s lacking subject matter. I want it to be good, but it’s testing me. I have time and I know I’ll finish it. The deadline looms. My goddaughter is looking forward to reading it, and I’m looking forward to giving it to her.