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confessions of an empty venue


The grime on the floors of this dive

are casting an honest reflection

of your soul:

Repeat the mantra:

Always book a local band on the bill.

Say this enough times

and come to spare the other bands

your lamentations of an empty room.

Did you forget there is someone

on sound we coaxed to play

“Jellyfish Jam.” Did you forget

the Bartender. The Ticket Salesperson.

Celebrate these foreign walls

racketing your noise across this

empty room where no net of bodies

is there to contest the sound.

Nothing to trip you.

--

Two kids just walked in off the streets

to join the volley.

and get dizzy.

Leave ‘em with a ring

that’ll get them home safe

and sing them to sleep.

That’s worth the two and a half

hour drive. Oh, yeah, and when

they give you a papercut of the door,

that’s for all of us:

that ten bucks is Wawa money,

so pony up

you rat,

and tell your sob story

to the friends who wouldn’t

make the drive.

JR Rhine, 2019

photo by mac cornish


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