Go Outside.  Listen

 

That old red Dodge maybe
has a new muffler –
sounds like soft jazz

Ol’ Leroy Gathercole thinks
he’s still in his
forties or fifties;

wears a bright yellow beret &
drives with one hand  –
plays the blues if he can find
them

Sometimes late at night
we can hear his trumpet  –  just
a few minutes of

be-bop
then a long loud fart that can be
heard maybe all the way

to the Mississippi Delta

 

_____

 

Mike Faran lives in Ventura, Ca. as a retired lobster trap builder. He is the author of We Go To A Fire (Penury Press) and is a Pushcart Prize nominee. His work has been published in Atlanta Review, Rattle, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Slant.