A Little More Blue
︎︎︎ Ryan Collins
︎ OCT 26, 2021
in memory of Marisa “Missy” Sorrells 1958-2017
a little less anger & a little more winter
fills two old fashioned glasses
with summertime drinks & crushed ice
under the tomato lantern light
in a room with the most elegant music selection for a thousand miles
a litter more winter & a little less blue
opens like a book half-finished
a story abandoned for damn near
almost 10 months & 10 days & so what
what’s changed besides the seasons
besides kindness or its lack
rising like a Scorpio moon
a room half-full & waxing
with sitar trip hop & drum loops & trance spells
pre-millennial tension wire
insulated by air
a little less blue & a little more feedback
a network of constant humming
strung together by loom & by turntable
the selector crossfades in time & in key & the pressure drops
a room pulsing in syncopation
with the beats per minute
with the projector
clipping on a heather-grey scrap of a screen
not an overmantel
not a musak version of exit music
from a film not a movie not a cult not classic
not an optical illusion not a composite room
green & empty & shaded with data
a little more feedback & a little less silence
our most desperate choices soundtracked
our lives more than empty backgrounds
catching a trick blueberry light
our lives cast more than silhouettes
our choices trace & cut out
every choice makes us more vulnerable
& our vulnerabilities aren’t contests we hold
between ourselves & each other
a little less silence & a little more sugar
not as tender as the natural rests
comfortably fit inside pockets of conversation
detached from a steady tempo
under the lowest ends
a welcome hypnosis & hip shakes
shared around & outside & in the walls
passing through a doorway in both directions at once
under the flickering cupcake neon sign
the awnings & fixtures shutter
when someone new enters the room
when one song transitions
into the next the inexorable blur
& blend of the lives of the people captured
in song & in prayer a steady revolution
& the lives of the person spinning a gravity
strong enough to hold the atmosphere in place
a little more sugar & a little less shame
scores our most vulnerable moments
desperate for music to move us to smooth over our rough surfaces
a little less shame & a little more citrus
to keep the room warm
between a needle & an arterial groove
warm with lava-lamp conversations
with a blue summerless sunset
with each entrance & exit the door opens & takes
a gulp of an almost arctic November night
after 10 months & 10 days later
give or take & two years
still our grief & grieving continues
but when/if we listen to enough music we know
there’s no such thing as enough music
& when/if we listen to enough bright
blood-bruised corners of the world
we ought to better understand
music exists to apprehend us to remind us
the grieving continues forever
at different frequencies in different waves
music renders blue from a green emptiness
a little more citrus & a little less lonely
moments like voids between ice cubes
melting like summer in the last caipirinha
& the emptiness above its surface tension
like a clear sky over a cold sweetness
filling up a glass before leaving
before the end of the set
& its shadow of quiet
leaving before we’re ready
a silence we satisfy with anything
with nothing to say leaving
before we’re left alone & by ourselves
leaving before the last crushed lime quarters
& breaths of conversation melt & freeze
the moonlight too thin to skate
a little less lonely & a little more blue
on such lucky cloudless nights as these
we do our best
to stay inside & dance
a little less anger & a little more winter
fills two old fashioned glasses
with summertime drinks & crushed ice
under the tomato lantern light
in a room with the most elegant music selection for a thousand miles
a litter more winter & a little less blue
opens like a book half-finished
a story abandoned for damn near
almost 10 months & 10 days & so what
what’s changed besides the seasons
besides kindness or its lack
rising like a Scorpio moon
a room half-full & waxing
with sitar trip hop & drum loops & trance spells
pre-millennial tension wire
insulated by air
a little less blue & a little more feedback
a network of constant humming
strung together by loom & by turntable
the selector crossfades in time & in key & the pressure drops
a room pulsing in syncopation
with the beats per minute
with the projector
clipping on a heather-grey scrap of a screen
not an overmantel
not a musak version of exit music
from a film not a movie not a cult not classic
not an optical illusion not a composite room
green & empty & shaded with data
a little more feedback & a little less silence
our most desperate choices soundtracked
our lives more than empty backgrounds
catching a trick blueberry light
our lives cast more than silhouettes
our choices trace & cut out
every choice makes us more vulnerable
& our vulnerabilities aren’t contests we hold
between ourselves & each other
a little less silence & a little more sugar
not as tender as the natural rests
comfortably fit inside pockets of conversation
detached from a steady tempo
under the lowest ends
a welcome hypnosis & hip shakes
shared around & outside & in the walls
passing through a doorway in both directions at once
under the flickering cupcake neon sign
the awnings & fixtures shutter
when someone new enters the room
when one song transitions
into the next the inexorable blur
& blend of the lives of the people captured
in song & in prayer a steady revolution
& the lives of the person spinning a gravity
strong enough to hold the atmosphere in place
a little more sugar & a little less shame
scores our most vulnerable moments
desperate for music to move us to smooth over our rough surfaces
a little less shame & a little more citrus
to keep the room warm
between a needle & an arterial groove
warm with lava-lamp conversations
with a blue summerless sunset
with each entrance & exit the door opens & takes
a gulp of an almost arctic November night
after 10 months & 10 days later
give or take & two years
still our grief & grieving continues
but when/if we listen to enough music we know
there’s no such thing as enough music
& when/if we listen to enough bright
blood-bruised corners of the world
we ought to better understand
music exists to apprehend us to remind us
the grieving continues forever
at different frequencies in different waves
music renders blue from a green emptiness
a little more citrus & a little less lonely
moments like voids between ice cubes
melting like summer in the last caipirinha
& the emptiness above its surface tension
like a clear sky over a cold sweetness
filling up a glass before leaving
before the end of the set
& its shadow of quiet
leaving before we’re ready
a silence we satisfy with anything
with nothing to say leaving
before we’re left alone & by ourselves
leaving before the last crushed lime quarters
& breaths of conversation melt & freeze
the moonlight too thin to skate
a little less lonely & a little more blue
on such lucky cloudless nights as these
we do our best
to stay inside & dance
Ryan Collins is the author of A New American Field Guide & Song Book, and several chapbooks. His poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Asymptote, Diagram, Handsome, Ninth Letter, PEN Poetry Series, Apartment, Crazyhorse, Sink Review, and Two Peach. He hosts the SPECTRA Reading Series in Rock Island, Illinois, where he lives.