Home > Poetry Magazine > Solo R&B Vocal Underground

Poetry Magazine

POEM
RELATED CONTENT Discover this poem's context and related poetry.

Solo R&B Vocal Underground

By W. S. Di Piero b. 1945

It seems to head from its last stop too fast,

my transbay train’s strungout hoo, deep

inside the tunnel, and starts to bleed

into the baritone wail of that guy

at platform’s end, a sort of lullaby

rubbed against the wall then caught in a squall

of wind darkening toward us, his whippy voice

skinning its tired song off the tiled dome:

he’s determined, the silky lyric says,

to be independently blue, while we all

wait to be chuted to car lot or home,

closer to love, or farther, and sooner to loss,

our bashful shoes and arms like lives crossed,

every plural presence now some thing alone,

thanks to our singer-man. We wait for the train,

patient with hope, a hope that’s like complaint.

Source: Poetry (June 2006).

Biography

W.S. Di Piero was born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned degrees from St. Joseph’s College and San Francisco State College. A poet, essayist, art critic, and translator, Di Piero has taught at institutions such as Northwestern University, Louisiana State University, and Stanford, where he is professor emeritus of English and on faculty in the prestigious Stegner Poetry Workshop. Elected to the American Academy of . . .

Continue reading this biography