Benticore
Out
Black Woman Blues
If she holds that first note
eyes sealed and tomb-heavy
finger kissin’ the mic
we know she’s got the ghost
Fat Bass sighs his strings down
Bone Boss stops tap-tap-tapping
Doc Stick rattles a soft march
and Brass Man pulls the pause.
The cotton skirts and
dirt shirt boys take their pew stools
they know the hymn and the sermon
hands raised and testifyin’
She pulls that mud-water tone out
on a holiday, a holy day
and she’s still making love
She’s got the melody and
Brass Man’s on the down stroke
harmonious
Doc Stick watches her hips
she’s molasses thick and he marks
time as she willow-sways
the old music in her
the lyrics heat-trickle down her neck
and Doc pounds the old heat through
that black skin bass
The dirt shirt boys see the ghost in her
they get to clappin’ and stompin’
they wanna rush the groove
cotton skirt-twirl hike-up dance it,
skip to the end and
sleep on the chorus
She aint lettin go
Bone boss stays spider-light
on the ivory. He bird-songs
her summer night
pulls the stars out and
sets them twinklin
Fat Bass hums thick and sorghum-low
he lays down that country road home
sausage fingers on gold string biscuits
but she’s got the ghost and
she aint coming home tonight
Brass Man takes her up
they dance that ghost-step
off the road, past the birds
her song is hot peach cobbler on his lips
burns the tongue but he keeps on playin
The cotton skirts dance green angry moves
narrow hips and can’t keep Black Woman’s groove
She takes all the men to that hidden place
they don’t know the way
Black Woman pulls that
last boy-summer
out of an old song
hums the final note
lets the dirt shirt boys know they
aint got time to waste before
winter’s coming and black woman’s
on the next song
and the band is packin up
4 comments:
Bravo!!
Very nicely done brah. Love the art with the scribes. Very complimentary.
That's beautiful.
Dude, you could post that poem every day and I would read it every day.
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