Wednesday Nights

In a brand new city, I searched for community
and found it on black floors and bright lights
on Wednesday nights.

The cameras capturing every weird and wild thing
and broadcasting it across the airwaves,
all our laughter live to tape.
Late at night we’d watch as follies unfolded
before our very eyes,
bursting out to the streets afterward
and bustling into the bars to ball until they closed,
strangers turned to friends, united through inside jokes,
every week tying us closer together.
No money to our names,
just mayhem and music
and the magic of bright lights
on Wednesday nights.

In a brand new city, I searched for community
and found it on black floors and bright lights
on Wednesday nights.

Voices rattling off verses in varying tones,
telling tales of love and fear, of life and death,
of belligerence, beauty, and – in one case – bidets,
All made up from the mind in differing meter,
making emotion come alive in the face of apathy,
enlightening and electrifying,
the audience knowing the call and response
and welcoming newcomers and old-timers,
pontificating together as equals,
connecting through our craft,
strangers turned to friends, united over spilled-out sorrows,
every week tying us closer together.
No money to our names,
just poetry and the power of bright lights
on Wednesday nights.

And many have told me, in my middle age
that it’s madness to make such a late night excursion.
And I hear their concern, and I hear my bones ache,
And I hear my head hurt.
But I feel my soul wake
when I walk through the door
for my mid-week communion,
whether at Manhattan cable access
or a bar basement in Cambridge.

I throw myself into the mosh pit,
shout my words out on the stage,
and share in our collective joy
and pain and laughter and rage.

All of it tying us closer together
with no money to our names,
just weird and wonderful art
among the black floors
and the bright lights
on Wednesday nights.

(November 20, 2024)