A COFFEE TIME REQUIEM
A puppy howls his dismay
tied to the chair outside
while his human gets
his first coffee of the day.
I caught the news today
Ali Farka Toure has passed away.
Gone to join Gate and John Lee
in the celestial blues band you see.
I sit with my coffee at the top of my book
while a native man scrounges butts outside.
I try not to stare or even appear to look
for there is no place to run or hide.
The girls shout drink orders
and life passes in a rainy blur.
People on bikes ride the sidewalk
and no one has time to talk.
There is no time for the lives that were
as we rush to errands, there is no time to spare,
checking watches and talking on cells
each alone in our personal hells.
All in a crowd but quite alone
the poet scribbles in another reality
trying to get his head around
this picture in all its totality.
Manic laughs and loud exclamations
send the sound in my direction
while the overfed and overweight
wait in line for their confection.
Newspapers folded under their arms
the latest famine headline in view,
one wonders if the concern
is true.
Or is it just another
dumb ass horror
being held up to the
mirror?
Ali Farka Toure
sings the blues from the grave,
With Ry Cooder and Gate Mouth Brown
and other African players of renown.
The rain beats a billion small wounds
on the pavement out side
knowing that the rain will prevail
and the concrete will record the fiction of our travail.
We pass this way but once – be it as rocket scientist or dunce.
All powerful and like a wilful and careless whore
we stumble from error to error
always seeking and destroying more.
Rest in peace, the old friend
I never knew, because today I do know more
a lesson from life and the passing of
Ali Farka Toure.