Paul Dickey

Art or Life?

Crazy Townes in concert tonight in town. 
Maybe he’ll be up, maybe he’ll be down. 
Maybe he’ll do Kathleen, maybe he won’t.
Don’t tell him nothing, don’t ever say don’t.

Ever had your wife chain you to a tree
so you could drink vodka consequence free?
Or lost your gold tooth in a poker game
to a motherfucker so drunk his aim

plied out a white before he hit pay dirt
and so he laughed as blood ran down your shirt?
Or spaced, set your kid’s hair on fire? – All night
on stage, he aimed each word perfectly right.

Give all this for art? … No, I suppose I can’t
ever write a love song like Townes Van Zandt. 

Paul Dickey is the author of several collections of poetry, including recently Anti-Realism in Shadows at Suppertime (2022) and A Reading of Dali (Likely Misunderstood) Which is Twenty Meters Become the Poet’s Self-portrait (2022). More info is available at his website: http://pauldickey9.wix.com/paul-dickey. Dickey lives in Omaha and is retired from teaching in philosophy.