How to Become a Professional Folk Singer
at the newly opened Ambush Club, Wichita, 1971
 
                               
There I was: lemon-tinted Lennon glasses,
paisley shirt like ironed vomit, corroded
toenails dangling from K-Mart sandals . . .
                                
And when Otis Redding was cut off mid-chorus
from the juke, the three dozen dressed-to-the-max
black couples gazed up at me, each mouth a rictus,
                                
as I tuned my Yamaha in the circle of light.
Close enough for folk music, I declared
and began to strum my three-chord version
 
of Dock of the Bay, a clever segue and nod to Otis,
I thought.  My fingers meated through the song.  
I sat on that dock watching the waves come and go

through three choruses, then plunked a final major C
with all the majesty of a hammered thumbnail.
And I saw I had stunned the crowd to silence.
 
Did these fine people think I was a novelty act?
If I’d expected applause, I got a voice in the back saying,
Whoa, Momma—turn on the firehose.   
                                                        
And poor Dennis, the new owner and dead-ringer
Ozzie Nelson who’d heard me strum “Stewball”
and “Puff” at the Riverside Park Folk Jamboree,
                                
who thought I was good and knew he needed music,
was frozen behind the bar, lava lamps auguring his future:
purple bubbles rising and breaking apart
 
like the opening-night crowd.  The juke erupted
with Otis, back on his dock.  The stage lights dimmed.
Drinks on the house! I heard a voice say, Dennis’ voice,
 
and he pressed a twenty into my right palm.  Just go,
he said. OK?  I slung the guitar over my shoulder.
He opened the back door to the parking lot,
 
and I took my rightful place among the stars.