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I gave this guy a dollar

and asked him to play a little

Ornette Coleman or Sonny Rollins.

He said he was the next

John Coltrane

before he started playing some Charlie Parker.

The summer heat swelled his cheeks

and bellowed through his brass sax,

while the passion and fury of angry jazz

and a life of cheap purgery

of dollar renditions

of tired supermarket compositions

bulged in his ballooning eyes,

making Charlie Parker turn in his grave

and me tuck tail and run

before turning back and yelling

"That's a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger man!"