Blues in the Night — Blackbird Archive

← v2n2, Fall 2003

The horoscope says disaster is coming. The weatherman

Says rain. Garbage trucks go about their dirty business

Not caring either way. What message did you want

To leave? Who did you say was calling?

There are traditions for such things. One of them says

There is no tradition; it's been saying so forever.

Another says the form repeats itself; just stick around.

Music needs no subject, but one always turns up

Unexpectedly, dragging its trashy story,

A human figure, a woman, her dress black under streetlights.

Look at her: she just got off a bus from nowhere,

Her face shining with sweat. Or has the storm rolled in?

music urban-life solitude

T.R. Hummer

T.R. Hummer is the author of fifteen books of poetry and essays, most recently In These States (Jacar Press, 2020) and Eon (Louisiana State University Press, 2018). His most recent poems have appeared in The New Yorker , New York Quarterly , and Rattle . A former professor, he served as editor-in-chief for the Kenyon Review , The New England Review , and The Georgia Review . He has received numerous awards and honors, including a National Endowment of the Arts Individual Artist Grant in poetry, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, and the Donald Justice Award for Poetry. Formerly a professor and editor, he now lives in Cold Spring, New York. Photo by David Limburg