The band was exhausted,
Fall down tired and sweat happy.
But still on track,
Eye flirting and sending secret messages
To every girl they coaxed up
Onto the sandy wood plank dance floor,
But after six hours and 100 songs.
And now at 2:30 a.m. and the lights all up
A bit too drunk,
And way too tired to search out the tempo of the blues,
The drummer,
Buddha on his toadstool,
His shirt soaked with rhythm and stained dark green
From a steady sweat,
His boot, a robot after all these years,
Still tapped the bass drum lightly
As he dreamt of pizza,
Pizza in bed served by naked twenty somethings,
Who don't believe love has to hurt.
They, Bill and Sheila,the music gone
Continued to slow dance,
The beat replaced by the random ****** of shot glasses
Loaded by hand onto the top shelf
Of the dishwasher...
And to the scratch
Of the one armed bus boy with a push broom but no deadline.
The full moon had finally risen out of the sea,
Or was it the sun too tired to shine and begging for a day off.
Her arms were a tight hoop around his neck,
She knew how to hang onto love,
Her cheek to his chest, to his heart.
She'd kicked off her sandals and stepped onto his boots,
Her full weight a reminder that they weren't dead yet.
He'd always known how to lead and carried her with ease.
'Is this the end', Sheila asked him
And looked around at the nearly empty room,
'Not as long as we keep dancing' he said
And kissed her with a full tongue.
Part of what I'm trying to do here is literally paint a picture in the reader's mind. Many years ago I used to own a bar and I saw love come and go every day. Every once in awhile a couple who just seemed to be the couple who would stay together forever arrived and brought with them a special kind of buzz. I always wanted to know how they did it, how did it work for them while the rest of us were continuously unhappy. I never did find out but this poem is a toast to Bill and Sheila and to those who get it right. Love is slow dance that won't stop for nothin'. Party on poets.
