Heaven in Karaoke

I kid ye not...
A Gathering of working class (is there still such a thing?) drinking, drunkenish ordinary people
Some who get on yer wick
Some who you envy
Some who you dont see eye to eye with
Or know where they are exactly coming from

But the roots are local
And the Art is abundant

It resides in the craggy smokers' faces

It lives and breathes, gasps even, from the lungs that have coal dust and stardust
In the genes

Beer in the belly
A microphone in the hand

There is Heaven in Karaoke
As it is in the Ordinary
Where the tempo is changed for a session
Where the song in its however-badly-played-and-sung form, rises

Touches, can touch
If you allow it to

Easily, far too easily dismissed by higher thinking Art intelligencia
Who would do well to spend a night flicking through the books of songs
And reviving that old tune that once meant so much to them
That maybe helped them through a part of the dark road of their youth

Instead of looking down and seeing only darkness, looking again and recognising the tiny tiny glimpses of moonlight
That reflect in the puddle, the pool of memory

Any edge the path of the road less travelled