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Champion Jack Dupree
It was his fingers, finally,
that knew that deep hurt,
that ache deep in his skin.
So many years,
hands killing mosquitos at the
New Orleans Home for
Colored Waifs, hands burning
over hot griddles, or busted up in
two-bit leather gloves, hands that
knew triggers, and POW camps,
and the dark stain of barrelhouse wood.
Never much for drink or drug,
I think of [...]
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 [...]
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