beggin’ for the blues

They were playing blues
over hurdles, subways,
and moving trains.

A busy city screaming,
yet they were all playing.

What a disgrace—
all of them stomping
over muddy puddles.

A lot of them dead,
a lot of them born that day,
but even the toddlers
were playing blues.

Oh, I’d never seen
such a catastrophic thing—
atrocities,
a bunch of felonies,
meteorites falling,

yet they all
were begging
for the tunes.

I am no poet,
nor am I a prophet,
but I’ve got a thing
to say or two

about them good old folks
humming the blues.

It’s safe to say,
I’ve seen it all.

They lay low
and pretend
to have no soul,

but still,
they’re blowing a sax
from ages ago.

I refuse to believe
that a miserable cunt like me
has nothing to contribute

to the greatness
of the blues.

Oh, how we all wish
to be immortalized
like the one
who orchestrated

this divine necessity.

O, Mother of Blues,
you’re too selfless
to be claimed
as the goddess, aren’t you?

Or are you too selfish
to have your son
all for yourself?

It all has changed
since the day
you were born—

from cigarettes to vapes,
from unspeakable sickness
to propaganda
of a coordinated vaccine,

and from black death
to a state
of loneliness.

Despite you being with us
to this day,
some of them cry out,

“Oh, we miss you!”

What a lovely being
you are,
the blues.

We are mere nothingness
compared
to your grand self.