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 W.S. Di Piero’s forthcoming book is Chinese Apples: New and Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). He writes frequently about the visual arts and lives in San Francisco, California. Email a friend >> Printable version >> |
Solo R&B Vocal Underground
It seems to head from its last stop too fast,
my transbay train’s strungout hoo, deep
inside the tunnel, and starts to bleed
into the baritone wail of that guy
at platform’s end, a sort of lullaby
rubbed against the wall then caught in a squall
of wind darkening toward us, his whippy voice
skinning its tired song off the tiled dome:
he’s determined, the silky lyric says,
to be independently blue, while we all
wait to be chuted to car lot or home,
closer to love, or farther, and sooner to loss,
our bashful shoes and arms like lives crossed,
every plural presence now some thing alone,
thanks to our singer-man. We wait for the train,
patient with hope, a hope that’s like complaint. |
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