Rusty Barnes

At the Show

In my psychotic samizdat the sound
of the Violent Femmes keeps me grounded.

Jet trail of word from forty-five years ago
gather in my forebrain and threaten

the sky with Cheap Thrills. Add it up,
Gordon says after starting the song

a capella and hundreds of young men
pogo in the pit. I would join  them

but for the simple fact I cannot get
one screw, let alone two but am still

childlike in my response, hearing these
notes, being 19 again, cock heavy and bold

in the front row of hardcore shows
jumping in the air, everything I have

coalesced in the stomp of my feet on
the scarred wooden floor. Ah, perfection!

 

Rusty Barnes lives and writes in Revere MA with his family. He edits the crime fiction journal Tough and the poetry journal Live Nude Poems.