Too Many Bad Songs - May 6 2023

 

Too Many Bad Songs

May 6 2023

A good song comes on

just as I’m pulling in to park.

The whole trip

flipping from station to station

and nothing worth listening to.

So I sit,

the sound cranked up

and windows steaming over,

looking suspicious, I’m sure

to any passer-by.

Isn't it always like this?

Bad timing,

and too many bad songs.

So why, when you're sad

does a sad song lift you up?

Is it the shared misery?

That you're not alone in the world?

Someone putting into words

the way you feel?

The blues, a little behind the beat.

A ballad

in a minor chord,

of men in ships

and grieving wives

who still look out to sea.

The cowboy twang

of an acoustic guitar

and a lonesome gravel voice,

singing of hard knocks

and lost girls,

the old dog

dying in his arms.

I sat, until the song was over;

the last note

lingering in the air

with plangent intensity,

as if, like me

it couldn't easily let go.

And in the heavy silence that followed

a few tears flowed,

a bittersweet salt

I haven't tasted in years.

Self pity, or fellow feeling, I’m not sure which.

But how freeing it felt;

there, in the quiet interior

with the windows covered in mist.

Where I couldn't see out

and no one see in.