Folk Listener's Lament

Text: Poem by Maureen Tolman Flannery

Coming home from the folk music concert

I think with tenderness about all those gallant men

condemned for centuries to march musically to the gallows tree,

each singing of how he was betrayed

or fiddling his way into hell

for that crime of passion

he probably thought better of

in the next few seconds

after he stabbed the unrepentant lovers

or threw the haughty beauty from the bridge into the raging waters far below.

And this ballad has him immortally approaching the noose

from pub to barn-dance hall

from stage to club across the continents and never once do conversing crows swoop down to fly off with the rope

or does the tree fold down its arms in defiant support of the poor guy or, to be sure, that blushing girl confess that he was with her

on the night in question

lying beneath the old-time stars loving as if it were no crime.

2004, published in Birmingham Poetry Review and Slant. Reprinted with permission.

PERFORMANCE  SUGGESTIONS: Encore or paired with a traditional folk song. At the end, singer might reveal a toy gun, hold barrel up towards pretend to shoot at ceiling, then lower barrel to lips and blow away pretend smoke on last piano chord.

Singer On the Isle of Stones (in the style of Irish Folk Song) 3:58

Folk Singer’s Lament  2:17