I never thought that I would have my heart broken by a city.
It wasn't just the men and the music;
It was the eternal hope and subsequent disappointment.
I didn't go there with dreams in a guitar case.
My hands have always been too small to wrap around the neck anyway.
I went for the experience, with a notebook to my name.
The most incredible voices echo through the streets
Like wind through bare New England oaks;
It's haunting, comforting, met with silence.
I leaned over the edge of a balcony and thought,
How many people have jumped?
Because the thing is: you don't make it in Music City.
You try and try and try and try and then you go home.
I met a man on a street corner, a shy, sweet little thing.
Two months later he was back in Dublin, playing in pubs.
A raspy, long-haired rock-and-roll singer howled into the night,
And he didn't sing again for months.
Not until his vocal cords recovered.
Five Scotsmen took the breath away from a hundred people;
They went on "hiatus" a few weeks ago.
But there was such hope in their voices, in their smiles.
And it broke my heart.
I long for Nashvillian streets beneath my feet once more.
I want to feel the desire and passion in the air,
Circulating like cigarette smoke outside the smallest venues.
I risk my sanity by inviting the hopeful and the hopeless into my heart.
At least I'll get a poem or two out of it,
And maybe they'll get a song.