A Blues Poet Dies

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain” -Roy Batty, Blade Runner


 

Time’s short for me
feelin’ like a void’s comin’

like the blue-black I see
when I stare into the night sky

void’s comin’
like a soakin’ wet fever
in my brain

it shows me nothin’
nothin’ but a shade
fadin’ t’black

images of memories racin’ past
like drivin’ at night
speedin’ blurred
doing 190
‘round the corners
streetlights streakin’

jus’a little man
insignificant
all’s I am
ev’a wuz

bangin’ word ‘gainst word
hammerin’ verse
searchin’ for truth

ma’ spirit’s depleted
been poorly treated
sure as hell been cheated

try’n a’get paid
get laid
livin’
in a blue angry world

now seein’ it slippin’ away

some blues
are just blues

n’some are death blues
and listen here
I got’em bad

hear me when I say
the whiskey’d
death blues is comin’
through that open door

I see’m
hear’m
feel’m rattle

poundin’
like an iron sledge
crushin’ my bones
spikin’ m’soul t’darkness

FUCK YOU LIFE!

look what you put me through
ridin’ the jellyroll line

that silver’d fever
‘n a scum-brown bowl

chasin’ that pocket-thick
golden madness

look wacha ‘ad me doin’
look wacha ‘ad me thinkin’

but I’m near gone
out ‘da damned door
your grip is slipped
I’m near loosed
ya’ hear — life

now ya’ just fragments
pieces of dreams
pieces of bad dreams
nightmare sorrows
riffs off key
in a blue dark night

I was born to a hard mornin’
but now
noddin’ g’bye in d’twilight

ready to shatter
into a million pieces of light
shot through the universe
stardust
returning to pure energy

eternal

all that time here
all those bewildering moments
all that frantic crazy-ass chaos
all that wonderful madness

over
done
gone

I’m light’ning flyin’

no more tryin’
no more lyin’
no more cryin’

all those moments
will be lost in time
like tears in rain

washed away
and I’m free
I shed this temporal husk

now life…
I will think on you
no more

*
rob kistner © 2022

More poetry at: dVerse

 

Billie delivers this following song with near perfection of tone and emotion.
It hits me especially hard — I was right there once in my youth.



28 thoughts on “A Blues Poet Dies”

    1. I thank you Mrs Clause! 🙂 But after spending the decades of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, either full-time, or part-time on stages, as the frontman man for many bands, singing lead and playing percussion — since moving to the PacNW in the 90’s, my failing health now at 75-years-old, makes that impossible, from anything other than reading from a chair. Nobody wants an old man reading poetry from a chair. Also, even a mild “grind”, of casual performing, would be a true challenge. Congestive heart failure (CHF) really takes it out of you. Though I have fantasized about it occasionally. I got great rich resonant reading chops. I would take an opposite approach from slam. Rather a laid-back jazz approach, with a horn-man on muted-trumpet, and an electric synth-keyboardist. Maybe just the keyboardist. But there is no market, I don’t think? Maybe a Tuesday night at a jazz joint or coffee house ( if they still exist? I have enough poems over thd last 30 years. See, there I go, fantasizing… 😉 …oh well, once a performer, always a performer, even one broken down… sigh!

  1. The last year I did slams and open mic, I had to use a chair, and nobody seemed to care once I would launch into my poetic rants. At one event, we had a sax man there who accompanied me, pure jazz improv; blues cool it was. You and I were definitely on parallel mind sets for this prompt; you were thumping my bass and reading my mind; bookends indeed.

    1. That’s fucking damed cool Glenn — real power-hot! I wouldn’t even know where to go find a venue, but I have certainly fantasized about it from time to time over the years.

  2. Oh Rob, this is FANTASTIC! Being 75, with the path in front of me much much shorter than the path behind me, I want these words put to music. I want a blue grass group to sing it and make the instrumentals for it. It is fantastically done!
    And these words…..let them be so!
    “ready to shatter
    into a million pieces of light
    shot through the universe
    stardust
    returning to pure energy
    eternal”

  3. some great lyrics Rob esepcially
    “hear me when I say
    the whiskey’d
    death blues is comin’
    through that open door”

    was just wondering which of the last words you are using from the prompt?

    1. By a significantly large margin Laura, my favorite death scene from the greatest movie I have ever scene — Roy Batty’s blisteringly poetic rooftop death!

      “all those moments
      will be lost in time
      like tears in rain”

      In my “A Blues Poet Dies”, when read in its entirety, it is the third last verse in the piece.

    1. Love that entire album Lisa. 🙂 I also really like the way the Billie Eilish song introduces the possibility of this being about the suicide of the Blues Poet. I am not really certain if it is — and I wrote it. Hmmm… 😉

  4. Oh I LOVE this! Talk about not going gentle into that soft night! This was flippin’ the bird, givin’ the forks, and every other rude hand gesture know to man ending with a mic drop and walking out.

    I think sometimes people forget that the blues can rage and this was a glorious reminder. This was so good!

    1. Thank you Raivenne, I am so glad you resonated to the spirit of my piece here. 🙂 You interpreted it marvelously. I didn’t come in easy, and when I flash into stardust again, it will be all ablaze.

  5. This is … incredibly incredibly powerful writing, Rob! I could feel the pain, the angst, the determination, the struggle and the feeling of liberation at the end .. gah! This is a poem to be read aloud! Kudos!

    1. Thank you, and I appreciate your gracious sentiment. I have come to find peace with the reality of it Kate. Hell, we are all going to die. I have died once already, very briefly. My reward was a Pacemaker. I’m now a bionic man… 😉

      1. I have a cardiology appointment in a couple of weeks… hopefully I’ll have an explanation for the rabbit kicking in my chest then.
        Thanks for the comments on my post to this prompt.

  6. Rob, this embodies you so well ( the little that I have come to know you through your poems in the past one year). I love this quintessential bluesy verse! ??

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *