BAD PENNY BLUES

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Jazz festival:

wandering through the old city square for the first time in many years,

(here, the music, as in the old days, is still free)

searching faces for recognition, but finding none.

Even the bands whose names I do recognise are full of old men: the odd beery-red face; bald heads hidden under baseball caps  -  total strangers at first glance.

Later, in the pub, I’m astonished to find that I went to school with most of them!

(I see the same astonishment in their eyes).

As I leave they are playing ‘Bad Penny Blues’  -  perhaps I shouldn’t have turned up!

outside the pub

an upturned tuba

inside, upturned jazzers