Blind Willie Johnson
Huddled in the ruins of his
burned-out Beaumont home,
not a single goddamed place to go,
turned out from the infirmary
for being black and blind
and not worth saving,
shivering in a rain-soaked bed,
too sick to go sing on his corner,
the milky water filling those
strong, beautiful lungs.
Blind Willie Johnson,
shaking and trembling,
thinking back on a ravaged life,
back to strumming [...]
Elmore James
bleary-eyed
on tub-stilled shine,
passing a bottle back to
the ghost of Robert Johnson,
barreling down a dusty, yellow,
washboard Mississippi backroad,
heart shuddering in his chest,
all the screws shaking loose,
he slides that ‘39 Merc
across the terrible frets
of the American night,
past the crossroads,
hungry and desperate for
more liquor, more money, more women,
more anything-to-make-him-forget,
more he-don’t-even-know-what,
and in the backseat,
the ghost of Robert Johnson
downs [...]
we’d lost a few head of Brahman
out there past the Culbertson place,
& this one in particular, beautiful gray one,
her bones knuckled up against the
underside of her pelt as she rotted,
like brambles under a half foot of snow,
that ol’ hide stretched taut enough
for a stray cat to hide her winter litter
right in the hollow, nestled there
‘tween the brisket & flank,
under that stinky ol’ leathery tarp,
just enough shelter to make it ’til Spring…
…it’s the salt cedar–thick, suffocating, merciless–
plain as mineral striations on each lakeside cliff,
Elephant Butte is dying…
& it’s the goddamned salt cedar,
it’s furious thirst respecting nothing,
it’s furious thirst murdering the Bosque,
leaving only saturated silt banks,
sand against sedimentary clay…
from 37 psalms from the Badlands.
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