Anchored

POETRY

by Nicole Pottgen

I have seen them all beaming for years now,

galloping on neon main street with dreams bursting from their mind’s tavern into the streets, into the bars, onto my field of drunken vision.

The sudden spectacular slew of urgent artists and their cacophony of charisma, racing to find conversation in the night’s eye.

The crazy-faced, bright-eyed singers gripping microphones with a passion that could light the room on fire and burn that way for hours.

The nose studded, drug flooded, ink ridden hedonists, smiling a smile of pure ecstasy.

The bell-bottomed, button-downed, decade bending rockstars—Morrison, Hendrix, Page, reincarnated on moon-colored sidewalks.

The punk rock kids in the basement, bruised and trampled and blissfully throwing themselves in a state of delighted outrage.

The reward of the pit, sweat and flesh and never-ending whiplash.

The ones on the radio, the ones who date them, the ones who walk around with fascinating nonchalance.

The frenzy of the masses, sparkling amid changing seasons with stars in their mind and dreams they float so calmly upon.

The ones who tickle the ivories, lost in trance-like, musical, spell-casting sound.

The glance from one bassist to another in a simultaneous bounce.

The drum sets, scribbled set-lists, artifacts that call back to October nights with the bands’ big noise and the coming and going of dazzling crowds.

Tucking someone’s hair back at the rock show.

Their face as they leave my room for the first and last time.

The girls who stand front row.

The frontmen who stare.

The ones at the harbor, the ones on the porch, cigarettes passed through mouths, each tongue, each half-lidded stare of frivolous gratitude.

Cheetah print, zebra print, cow print, comically large earrings, fur coats, leather coats, old, young, chess enthusiasts.

Widened eyes, hearing damage, the ringing of a hundred musicians who scatter this town like shiny figures in a microcosm of artistry.

The new faces and the old ones, anchored to these stages with inescapable ambition,

losing it all while pining for love, music, lust, experience, and style.

Casting fantasies onto the mind of another, time and time and time again,

thrown into the madness and life’s vicious whims.

            They beam this way and that way

I watch them as they rise and fall.