Fame & Fancy Literature

I am sitting in Harry’s Corner Bar
listening to the din
of people talking loudly
in the summertime heat
of New Orleans.
I am on a two-day bender
out celebrating something
I really don’t know
and cannot name.
I am pushing myself too hard
trying for something,
for anything to spark.
A middle-aged woman
with silver streaked hair
puts a five into the old jukebox
and plays,
Luckenbach, Texas by Waylon Jennings.
She doesn’t know that I wrote a poem
about that very song.
In fact, the poem is called,
Luckenbach, Texas!
It is in my book, Disposable Darlings
whose cover was photographed
right here in this same bar,
blowup dolls and all.

If I had the book with me
or the poem memorized
I’d recite it for her
under the purple neon Abita beer sign
but she has since moved on
to Garth Brooks
and that is just not conducive
to respectable literature.