busking as a modern bard by Lauren Fischer

busking as a modern bard busking as a modern bard

by lauren fischer

In a voice rarely heard over the rat-rat-rattling of rails, despite bodies pressed flat against the walls, the subway stranger breaks the sound barrier of convention, range stretched to snap through another conversation to sing of Charon’s fee — wouldn’t you know, the no-masking, greasy-shirted man can echo ghostly poets, myth visceral, lifelike, us subway shades pressing coins over eyes and tongues, slipped into pockets and swiped through automatons, the click-clock-work underworld, and its howling, hound-guarded, hell-licked Styx .

art | Michelle Zhang