Folk Singers
self-recording
self-promotion
detailed production
world-wide distribution
on filaments and wires
pumped through an AI loop
of self-indulgence
on endless replay
what more can i say
that's today
french troubadours
with smiling mouths
and tapestry faces
not that long ago
played pear-shaped
lutes and fruitwood flutes
plucked notes recited poems
that they rarely penned to paper
they mostly left us
without a trace
who knows who cares
where their lives began
where their lives ended
if what they conceived
somehow remained
woven in the weave
most of their names
were unrecorded
and yet
contrariwise
as a countercultural
counterpoint
to those who appear to go
without saying goodbye
in the inferno
of the sixties
folk singers just
beginning their journey
would inevitably perform
melodies from the dark ages
unwittingly recite
medieval verses
stepping onto
wobbly makeshift
platforms
in small cafes
in rundown venues
along bleeker
and macdougal
with the mission
of sharing meaning
with a diaspora
united by attire
an affinity for darts
and the belief
that what lives
if it lives at all
must stay out
until morning
and every so often
a young performer
in front of a microphone
strapped to a
pick-up and an acoustic
guitar would shed
the old ballads and
appropriated covers
and come full circle
to an original
composition
a tale of anger and of loss
locked away and carried
from the bar onto the stage
and when the
first notes would
float in the air
it was as if
a frightened bird
had been released
from some primordial cage
its cloistered wings
fluttering its lungs
chirping through
the smoke-filled space
frantic to discover
a broken pane
of glass or other
dark exit to the street
and when the song
was over
the brief pause
as the audience
remembered
to inhale again
when those seated
or standing would
startle back from
the dream they for
a few moments
shared
and then
the slow
moving wave
of soft applause
followed by
resumed clinking
and the crescendo
of chatter
and imbibing
so much within
that even without
a post on
a portable
hand-held device
or coaching
by smart eyeglasses
it felt as though
each person
drinking
there alone
or in good company
at the pub was
connected underneath
by divine threads
of indivisible power
to every other