Nevada

In the desert
your music changes, melding
with the harsh harmonics
of the landscape.
The mellow, smoky blues
leach away, replaced
by monochrome discords,
stark and brittle
as sun-bleached bone;
shrill and strident
as a stooping eagle;
pitched, somewhere,
between jazz
and insanity.

They drop you,
before Vegas,
fearing the crowd
will find your new sound
a little too close to home
for comfort;
leaving you stranded,
at the edge of the road,
somewhere between jazz,
and insanity.