Violin Man

And the strings all worn thin on his
violin, made in 1885 out of ivory
and irony in a pawnshop not far from
the traintracks; which traintracks he never
bothered to remember - they lead home,
and home had no roof and no walls;
home was a palindrome.
The violin man kept Frankfurt marks in
his case -they were given as a praise;
impossible to exchange for anything but
pebbles to throw at the competition,
the same men he once played with in a cafe
under the bridge, with Danube water as the
drink of the day.
He don't know Vivaldi, but neither do we;
lately all we hear is what we see; not what
is right, but what is left - and what is left is only
a temporary explosion of tone; something easy
to condone and this is why with an eventful grin
the man will sell the violin.