Streetlight Sonata

It started with a backbeat
that Danny laid down on a pair
of garbage cans and a couple of street signs.

Then Billy expanded on it
with a bass line he thumped out
on an old wooden telephone pole.

And Johnny joined in, strumming out
a rhythm on the telephone lines
stretched across the black velvet sky.

Jerry did us proud with a screaming solo
wrung out of the wrought iron
fences lining the cul de sac.

And I, for my part, sang some maximum
rhythm and blues dredged up from
somewhere deep inside a dark night of the soul,

My voice joining with the band, a siren’s song,
summoning the demons of rock and roll
to seduce heaven’s horniest angels from their hymns.