For all the singers on the circuit

Here's a poem for all the singer/songwriters who give their all but never really make it big.


Picker
 
He sings in the key of heartbreak,
fingers the frets with practised and
calloused hand.
The other, a claw
strafing the strings with rubato abandon
picking the pocket of rhythm.
 
More witness statement than song
he vents a life of failure and conquests
for all he can drink and a split of the door.
The beat hits the bloodstream like espresso
wearing bass-laced boots as bodies obey
the order to sway.
 
You’d swear him magician,
sleight of hand rich in
chords and harmonics,
yet all of this is merely
canvas for the embroidery
his words will stitch.
 
So he picks,
thirty years of bad choices and
not getting the breaks
squeezed in and out of the strings.
A night you’ll never forget
from a name you can’t remember.