He had the sleepiest

eyes since

Rip Van Winkle

closed his for twenty-

years, but, in his

case, when he

opened them

with a strum

of a C-chord,

every girl in the room,

the concert hall,

watching on black

and white T.V. or

maybe the new color

ones

would swoon

and Ricky would

sell another album

ever so soon.

The seventy-year-old,

who has strummed

a guitar since he

was seventeen,

saw Rick (without

the “y”)

blink those baby blues

in ever slow motion

on a T.V. promotion,

fingered a C-chord on

his air guitar, blinked

and when he awoke

caught the last half of

a BBC mystery on PBS,

so late at night the sun

would rise soon

and he realized

he had donated two

hundred bucks to

all that 50’s and 60’s

stuff helping

to assure that BBC

would continue on

U.S. PBS T.V.