They Are The Intermission (03)

Though nation-states may fracture, the world split between Guelphs and Ghibellines,
how the Shakey’s banjo-man displayed mastery over his instrument
carved from a calabash into one worthy of the ritziest of concert halls
or some Houston opera house, its gauzy glitter of sequins and chandeliers.

Sweating under the foam boater the franchise makes him wear, what ancient,
vatic feeling he could insert in Holiday on Strings or some other old-timey favorite!
Whether accustomed to 12-bar blues or bars or concert halls, local musicians
formed a ring of reverence around his shiny, tapping shoe. While Junior struggled
to follow those shimmering arpeggios and chord-clusters piercing the beer-mist!

But some complained they could not see the Looney Tunes, between which
the duo were meant as intermission. And thus the festive air was lost, the thread
To pubescence, and so slender at that! May the sprocket-holes to film shorts
never break! Outside the door, nations re-assert themselves, signs scrawled
with best-loved imprecations, Amharic, Cyrillic or Kanji, or red-lettered English.

While Mr. Banjoman, barely aware of such historical contingencies or brouhaha,
introduced a weltanschauung of discord, fragmentation, population shift
and creak of continental crust ins his musical sphere when his plectrum struck the steel strings,

while the audience hollered: four Sicilians, three Rolling Rocks, three loaded,
more Looney Tunes, please! As frosted beer-steins clink, hear strings
upon the banjo pluck: kerpluck, kerplunk, kaplunk! How rapt the banjoman!
While Junior followed those shimmering arpeggios piercing the beer-mist!