a poem of electric shadows

by Ivan A. Salazar

The man with the sunglasses, 

a black hole in the shape of a face, 

walks down the street that isn’t a street, 

but a wound that hums. 

He carries a guitar that doesn’t sing, 

it coughs, it spits, it bleeds a little. 

And the band, oh the band, 

they don’t play music, 

they dismantle it, 

they leave it naked in the corner, 

a pile of wires and static. 

The singer doesn’t sing, 

he murmurs,  he growls, 

he whispers lies that taste like truth. 

And the audience,  what audience? 

There is no audience, 

only ghosts, only echoes, 

only the sound of shoes walking away. 

But the man with the sunglasses, 

he doesn’t care, 

he lights a cigarette that doesn’t burn, 

he exhales smoke that doesn’t disappear, 

it stays, it lingers, 

it becomes the air you breathe. 

And the band, they don’t stop, 

they can’t stop, 

they play until the instruments break, 

until the amplifiers explode, 

until the silence becomes a song. 

And you, yes you, you listen, 

you don’t understand, 

but you listen, 

and something inside you cracks, 

something inside you wakes up, 

something inside you dies, 

and it’s beautiful. 

Because this isn’t music, 

it’s a mirror, it’s a knife, 

it’s a question without an answer, 

it’s the sound of the world falling apart, 

and you, you’re still here, 

listening, waiting, hoping, 

for the next note, the next word, 

the next silence. 

And it never comes.

Photo of Ivan A. Salazar

BIO: Ivan A Salazar, as a silent bard and published author of several poetry collections—Echoes in Time, Dream Weaver, If You Go South, Love and Life, Hope, Stranger and Other Poems, Our America, and Pixels, Planets, and Entertaining Rhymes—Salazar inspires and connects cultures and hearts through the magic of his pen.