I’m going to be performing a short spoken word piece at 20x2 tonight. If you’re in Austin, I’d love it if you could come out to the Ghost Room — it has been a long time since I last performed any poetry on stage in front of a large audience, and could use the support.

This year, the 20x2 question is “Who loves ya, baby” and my response to the question isn’t a direct answer, but instead a story that talks about a sense of belonging, a sense of place, and the need to have both of those to feel loved. It’s a little abstract, but I hope it will be well-received.

I’m including the text of the piece below, and I’ll be sure to embed video as soon as I can after I perform tonight.

UPDATE: Here’s an audio clip of a practice run that I did before my performance. Actual audio of the performance still isn’t available.

Fanfare.

I.
The man who played the trumpet at the piano bar
looked a lot like Miles Davis.

At the end of every one of my long days
I would come in to the piano bar to watch him play,
And every time I came by he would look up my way
Put down his trumpet, with a smile he would say,
“Mister Vasta, who loves you baby?”

And then, he would pick up his instrument
place it gently against his lips and begin to sway.
And play.

II.
My trumpeter? He was like me:
A transplant in a new city from across the sea,
Who came searching for opportunity.

But felt disconnected.

Away from the people he loved,
And the people that loved him,
Caught in a cycle of odd jobs,
and even odder homes,
Never being able to call this place,
this city his own.

Until he found his place at the piano bar,
Where he would play his trumpet,
Where he could be a star.

And when I escaped my office as the day grew dark
I would meet him there, buy him a drink,
And watch him take his trumpet to his lips.
And play.

III.
Then, one day
I met him in the mid-afternoon at a cafe.
No smile on his face.
No music to play.

Instead, a cup of coffee shaking in his hand,
Solitude and sorrow pouring out his eyes,
Without his smile that he wore as a disguise,
A look so forlorn I almost didn’t recognize him.

I looked at him, and with smile,
I cheekily did say,
“Hey Mister Miles Davis, who loves ya baby?”

I expected him to reciprocate my smile.

Instead, he sat down next to me, and spoke quietly;
Whispered, almost:

“Today, the piano bar found a new trumpeter.

When you ask me, who loves me baby,
I look around me here and easily see…
Who loves me? Not them, not he, not she.
Sometimes, I think, not even me.”

With that he got up, and walked away.
I never again did get to hear him play.

And me?
I decided to move back home,
To a place I was loved,
That day.

(Photo by Igor Gusarov.)