Well Bottom Blues

The bad soprano busker is back

rehearsing murder of a violin

for the poor tourists who just

want to eat beignets in peace

The danse macabre of summer

Sugar Plum Fairies melting

in June’s heat, squawking

like a collapsing accordion

another Happy Birthday

and then Anchors Aweigh

and I wonder if come fall

he’ll know all the fight songs

awfully judgemental for someone

who loves the squalling of crows

as a distant named storm

rattles and whistles in the trees

I don’t stop for cafe au laitif

there’s a mob of tourist buses;

some thing’s off, no night herons

but crowds of blue jays today

so I walk on until his

squealing reed is once again

the distant tortured throes

of a vague dying violin

and listen through the park’s

honk and squawk and quack

for a storm-tossed tonic

blown up from the Gulf.