Poetry Archives

Now this here rag is the one they used to call
the lost rag.

Sort of thing everybody knew and nobody ever bothered
to write down.

It was just a few licks, something you’d sit and play
by yourself,

when there was nobody else around.  Maybe it was
some old man

showed you how to play it, a long time ago.  You turn off
that machine,

I’m going to play it for you now.  I said
turn it off.