The Last Troubadour

Standing at the glass-paneled wall of Liza’s kitchen at the old house half-hidden Over a mile up Canyon Road in Joshua’s gated compound I’m just smoking a joint & looking down at the dusk dusting the Malibu lights as they flare Along the coastline below & I can hear the ripped-up Buick fenders & Caddy bumpers slammed around out in the barn studio as they’re slowly Torched into art as Joshua moves the spitting arc-welder Over armatures of rebar shaping a dozen abstract guitars or mandolins while its Acetylene tongue ticks in the black shade of his visor Once in a while his back-in-the-day transistor radio hooked on a nail bent in the wall Cuts through the sizzle with a hit of his that’s slipped Lately back into fashion & I’ve watched him slowly lift the head of that torch until it angles Against the turquoise plastic moon of the radio dial As if he might melt it all back to a few black platters — those times as lost as song