“Grand Ole Opry”
Nashville, Tennessee
Photo from tripadvisor.com

vagrants and vagabonds
tramp without leaving
so much as a footprint
in whindust of railroad beds
peripatetic gray phantoms
pedestrian journeyers
trekking from alley to alley
propelled by the turns in
the weather of whims
unnoticed by privilege
they carry their meager
estates on their backs
never owning a need
for a lock or a key keeping
sane if not safe mumbling
songs to themselves
music raised from mean
circumstance root-grown
resigned to serial failure
only to fall further victim
to those who will cleverly
plagiarize misery balladeer
bandits who turn these
poor stories to fortune
and twang under spotlights
bejeweling the stage of
the famed Grand Ole Opry
but on second thought
maybe this process
redeems itself broadcasting
voices of indigence
not likely otherwise heard
in the salons aloof disengaged
and exceeding respectable
quotients of Barbary ethics