monster picks up a tenor

Every true poet is a monster.

Tomaz Salamun

Monster out of work
nearly two years.
For twenty-five bucks
picks up a
battered Buescher
from a pawn shop
and begins to teach
himself how to play.
Scales and melodies
at daybreak,
screaming feedback
by nightfall.
He fixes
an old record
player so he can
jam with Coltrane.
For a change of
tempo gives up
drink. Says
to his cronies in
the busted
park Got my golden
horn to drink from, man.
And to any-
one who crosses
him Don't fuck
with me or my tenor!
Sweetest slice
in the world comes
from my horn. Goes
begging in bars
for the cost of a box
of reeds. Plays in an alley,
Believeth Me, If All Those
Endearing Young Charms.
Tone filled with spit
and righteous
vibrato. Later he
sleeps with his horn.
White genitals
cradled
in its bell.