FRIDAY NIGHT

Friday night we went out.

Second Avenue in Nashville

sparkles on the skin and teeth

of a crowd looking for

something,

anything,

to interrupt the dark

vacancies they occupy.

Short skirts, low tops,

cowboy boots, buckles, and hats

decorating everyone’s desperate smiles;

seeking something,

anything,

except what is really there;

swirling details in column, brick, and

door, finer than the faces flashing by,

Music to beat the band,

and characters

to make Fellini weep

for joy at their lost souls.

These beautiful, empty smiles

flash and burn in neon

as they dance

to a tune of laughing

desperation.

“Please!” They cry.  “I am empty

and hollow,

fill me, fill me!”

But there is no room in

emptiness for truth,

a good book, poem

and lasting touch of

body or mind.

So all their openings

open wide

for noise and no thought,

under lights illuminating nothing,

and conversations too.

Tomorrow they will say,

“We jerked around

to loud noise!”

While angelic faces

of derelict poets asleep with

the rain went unnoticed

in every alley.

Friday night, we went out.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

Such crowds are not only in Nashville. You can see them in any town, crowds of people seeking to fill their inner emptiness with something in the outer world. They may find it for a time, but the void will assert itself again, sooner or later. The bottom line is you can't find externally that which exists within you. To flee the "void" is ultimately to flee life.

[Vol]

John,
I am sure it is true in many places... Broadway and 2nd Ave. in Nashville, Tennessee is like a fairgrounds midway every night. The bars are side-by-side bars each with live music, and every kind of beer and alcohol plus the odor of weed.
What you say about that internal void exists in every thinking person..
Vol

[Dave Brown]

this brings to mind the gazillions of people willing to pay however much to watch a far way, ant sized performer ( ie; Taylor Swift) on a distant stage, plus the million, gazillion more gathered outside just to hear her perform

[BronnyB]

I love the tempo and rhythm of the poem matches the busy nighttime crowd 😊

[Vol]

Thank you BronnyB

[Beccy]

I personally have never had any particular desire to be part of the throng, but I have seen this scenario enacted so many times; and I have concluded that as I hover ever closer to the big 50, 'tis the curse, (or some may say the duty,) of poets to observe as much as partake.

Anyway, that's my excuse for mostly staying in on a Friday night; and I have to say that in this instance it was absolutely worth it as this is a truly wonderfully written and insightful poem.

Beccy.

[Vol]

Beccy...YES... It's what we're hired for...
Hahaha! I was forty-nine when I wrote this, I'm 74 now... It is even worse these days... I had never been, My girlfriend and later, wife for 20 years, took me there for a friend's birthday back in 1998. The girls were ensconced at a corner table drinking "Buttery N*****s" while I danced with the cheerleaders for the Nashville Kats arena football team. I thought "Dang, these ladies dance dirty!" I find out later, they were recruited from local strip bars... I never went back to downtown for a "fun" evening again...
Vol