Day 40: The Man with the Guitar

the man with the guitar sits in the corner
gently strumming a five string guitar
he plays a song about a girl he once knew
who just fell, down and down
into the cracks beneath the world

he knows his life is a memory
to all the faces in this small town bar
at the edge of town

he plays anyway singing softly
about love
life and death
heaven or hell
he sings his song and he tells no lies

he strumms and his voice is true
but the place is an echo
and the girl he once knew
is dead someplace beneath the world

he ends the song
singing, "she never knew,
never knew just what i loved,
her eyes, her breath,
the lips i'll never feel again"

and without a pause
he goes on to the favorite of this place
a song about a small town bar
at the far edge of town
where everyone knows the names
of their habits and their friends

and he thinks, remembering the girl
"maybe i'm the one one who really knows"
gently strumming a five string guitar
and singing about a small town bar at the edge of town.

---

obviously this is the third part of my "edge of town" poems, i am also starting to realize i am doing with these poems something i wanted to do with a series of shorts i attempted to write before... "perceptions".