Sunday, March 11, 2012

i just wanted to see carlos mejia

i just wanted to see carlos mejia
local folk musician and revolutionary

i didn´t realize it would mean being the chaperone
for seven very young people from the hostel

with a buzz on

-----

the young man with the medicine
was a delight

extremely mellow and literate
with a penchant for empathic communication

into theater and very funny

the native woman visiting from the bering strait
was likewise a hoot

very beautiful friendly and wise

we spoke of harvesting meat
and our bizarrely intense experiences on Ometepe

-----

the three younger women were annoying
in the usual way

fellow hostelers you find out
you have nothing in common with

though one of them did go the extra mile

by dominating every conversation
with shallow stories of life in miami

worse were our two young drunks
one of whom was stumblingly loud and abrasive

the other a young scot
who was way over the cultural line

with anger at our server
for a small mistake on the bill

we were trying to correct
and who i had to apologize for

a number of times

-----

worst of all was me

paying the extra few bucks
to have the bill come out right

negotiating appropriate taxi fares

and watching out for the safety
of a motley group of naive north americans

in a big and often unsafe city
as i took them to a club

where they spent their precious money
on cheap alcohol

and a show which we never saw
for as we found out after the first round

mejia only plays thursdays now

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