Lucille, Blind Son, Deep Blues, and an Empty Tobacco Can

[ellajam]

Hi, RC, lovely read. My first thought was that the lines needn't be so short because they seem off in the first four lines. Even now, enjoying the pace that the short lines set and finding the breaks pretty reasonable throughout, I don't find the opening up to the rest of the piece. Nowhere else does it seem to matter that it's Christmas day, the encounter would be as enchanting any day of the year. I also find the poem so firmly set in place that the opening announcement seems unnecessary.

I find it over-comma'ed, with the lines so short they are not needed for pauses, just for grammar, and for me they broke the read by drawing attention to themselves. I'll mark the ones that bother me with a "c" in case you'd like to rethink them.

Christmas-day,
Tallulah, Louisiana;
I walk through
frosty fields, this comma makes it read like the N is sprawling."
sprawling boundless
with baby elephant-ear I like the exactness here and the small/large play.
tobacco leaves,
picked-over cotton
and tangerines,
to a shambled row
of pickers’
shotgun houses.
I knock
on a paint-slivered door, "Paint-slivered", while being novel, stops me. For all images I come up with paint and slivered seem wrong together. It's not that the door can't be both, peeling and slivered, chipped? I can't quite put it together. Otherwise L5-12 beautifully ground the poem.
and hear shuffling,
rustling, inside.
A short, c
white-haired man,
pipe, dark glasses,
cracks open the door.

They told me,
up tha street,
you’re a guitar player,
tol’ me
you make the box talk.
I got one here,
you wanna
give it a workout?

What you drinkin?

What’s your pleasure?

I won’t say no to gin.

Done.
Be right back.

I believe you've unintentionally got a 3-way conversation here: bold/ital, bold and ital. It confused me,
I believe it's a typo.

………………………………

Lucille’s laying out,
willowy reed-thin,
on the rumpled bed;
no signs from her.
Blind Son
takes my Martin,
and proceeds
to stroke,
hammer,
and fondle it;
sounds come out of it
in disbelief, but you might consider a change from but to with and dropping it to the next line (no comma), disbelief would be a lovely break. I like the way the sounds themselves are in disbelief.
no hesitation,
knee deep in cotton, c
where they started out
back in slave days. For me this line is not needed, the two lines above do the trick.

He tunes to open,
takes a Prince Albert can
off a shelf, Love the way it could be a bowl, or anything else, in there but it's a slide. It's nice how the break gives me a chance to ponder.
slides it
up an’ down
the strings;
they whine and cry,
like Robert Johnson’s
when the devil
tuned it up strange
at the crossroads, Love that crossroads is used, adds layers.
Highway 8 an’ 1,
to a sound
unheard before.

Blind Son beams out:
Oh, man, ah lahk
this gitah.

He speaks gently
to Lucille,
asks her
to sing “one ‘a
the ol’ ones.”
She rolls over
on her back
and commences to
knock me out, love the way her only adjustment is to roll over, imaging that voice working from that position is a knockout itself. no comma, for me.
with a voice
born in honky-tonks
and roadhouses,
sets time dancing, I'm having difficulty with sentence structure here, maybe a "she" (or "it" if you're referring to the voice) before sets, with no comma after roadhouses. Maybe I'm missing something.
hollering,
loving,
in booze
delirium.

Soft, no comma, you're keeping the break from doing its job, IMO
Billie Holiday tones,
women’s blues,
jazzed into
spaces between
pain and wonder,
joy and betrayal,
floating memories
of dance halls
and over-protective,
mean, c?
boyfriends,

Lying there,
she introduces me
to a blues-land I'm not sure you need blues-land here, it could be cut with cyclone moved up. Like the slave line, no need to be hit over the head when the poem penetrates so well.
cyclone
resting inside people,
released
every Saturday night, c
from dusk
to late morning,
doin’ tha cakewalk,
tha shimmy,
swingout,
tha buzzard lope;
slingin’ barbecue,
gamblers’ cards
on the table,
whiskey
and homebrew
flowin.’ Cakewalk to here, a beautiful run.

“Dance all night,
dance tha night
ta mornin,’
shut tha door,
dance some more.”

She sings time
into enduring, c
generous strokes
of queenly
celebration,
embodying a joy
borne out of
a brutal history, I'm not sure you need the "a"
redeeming
centuries
of her ancestors, c
who move
ghostly limbs
in languorous
gestures
of survival.

I leave Blind Son the guitar, c
and tell my new favorite singer:

Lucille, I hope you’re feelin’ better
soon.

“Better already.” Lovely close.

Going through the poem again to add my notes I feel even more strongly that the poem would gain from trusting the short lines and strong breaks to achieve what you've managed to put them in a position to do so well. Just some thoughts, thanks for the sweet read.