02-23-2018, 09:00 AM
Knot - Ella - all changes from your adept suggestions:
Christmas-day, 1972,
Tallulah, Louisiana;
boots sound shlack
on light snow crust
as I walk through fields
boundless with baby elephant-ear
tobacco leaves, shreds of cotton,
and tangerines, to a shambled row
of pickers’ shotgun houses.
I knock on a paint-peeled door;
a man, short, white-haired,
pipe, dark glasses,
cracks open the door.
‘scuse me, They tol’ 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.
I’ll be right back.
………………………………
Lucille’s laying out, reed-thin,
in a white and faded blue
flower print full length dress
on the rumpled bed, body still.
Blind Son takes my Martin,
and tunes to open,
takes a Prince Albert can
off a shelf, slides it up an’ down the strings;
they whine and cry, like Robert Johnson’s
when the devil tuned it at the crossroads,
Highway 8 an’ 1.
Blind Son beams out:
Oh, man, ah lahk
this gitah.
He speaks gently to Lucille,
waking her from her half-sleep.
He asks her to sing “one ‘a the ol’ ones.”
She rolls over on her back
and with with a barely audible voice
born in honky-tonks
and roadhouses,
she sets time to dancing,
in booze delirium.
Soft Billie Holiday tones,
women’s blues, jazzed into spaces
between pain and wonder,
floating memories of dance halls
and over-protective, mean,
boyfriends,
Lying there, she introduces me
to a blues-land cyclone
that people carry all week,
released every Saturday night,
from dusk til past daylight,
doin’ tha cakewalk, tha shimmy,
swingout, tha buzzard lope;
slingin’ barbecue, cards, whiskey
homebrew flowin.’
“Dance all night, dance tha night
ta mornin,’ shut tha door,
dance some more.”
She sings time into enduring,
generous strokes of celebration,
her ancestors move ghostly limbs
in languorous gestures of survival.
I’m quiet after this, taking in what I have room for
as far as what just transpired. I’m stunned, feel a sense
of privilege, of being witness to an expression of truth
gone beyond anything I can put into words,
that usually serve me well. Here the words are subject
to a strength I've seen that’s overcome misery and denial.
I feel honored, and helpless, to express it in their presence.
Gone beyond.
I tell my new favorite singer:
Lucille, I hope you’re feelin’ better
soon.
“Better awready, son.”
I leave the guitar behind.
Christmas-day, 1972,
Tallulah, Louisiana;
boots sound shlack
on light snow crust
as I walk through fields
boundless with baby elephant-ear
tobacco leaves, shreds of cotton,
and tangerines, to a shambled row
of pickers’ shotgun houses.
I knock on a paint-peeled door;
a man, short, white-haired,
pipe, dark glasses,
cracks open the door.
‘scuse me, They tol’ 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.
I’ll be right back.
………………………………
Lucille’s laying out, reed-thin,
in a white and faded blue
flower print full length dress
on the rumpled bed, body still.
Blind Son takes my Martin,
and tunes to open,
takes a Prince Albert can
off a shelf, slides it up an’ down the strings;
they whine and cry, like Robert Johnson’s
when the devil tuned it at the crossroads,
Highway 8 an’ 1.
Blind Son beams out:
Oh, man, ah lahk
this gitah.
He speaks gently to Lucille,
waking her from her half-sleep.
He asks her to sing “one ‘a the ol’ ones.”
She rolls over on her back
and with with a barely audible voice
born in honky-tonks
and roadhouses,
she sets time to dancing,
in booze delirium.
Soft Billie Holiday tones,
women’s blues, jazzed into spaces
between pain and wonder,
floating memories of dance halls
and over-protective, mean,
boyfriends,
Lying there, she introduces me
to a blues-land cyclone
that people carry all week,
released every Saturday night,
from dusk til past daylight,
doin’ tha cakewalk, tha shimmy,
swingout, tha buzzard lope;
slingin’ barbecue, cards, whiskey
homebrew flowin.’
“Dance all night, dance tha night
ta mornin,’ shut tha door,
dance some more.”
She sings time into enduring,
generous strokes of celebration,
her ancestors move ghostly limbs
in languorous gestures of survival.
I’m quiet after this, taking in what I have room for
as far as what just transpired. I’m stunned, feel a sense
of privilege, of being witness to an expression of truth
gone beyond anything I can put into words,
that usually serve me well. Here the words are subject
to a strength I've seen that’s overcome misery and denial.
I feel honored, and helpless, to express it in their presence.
Gone beyond.
I tell my new favorite singer:
Lucille, I hope you’re feelin’ better
soon.
“Better awready, son.”
I leave the guitar behind.