In a Raspy Voice
origin of my blues poems in 2018


On a sultry day waiting in the Honda 
while my Muse shops in Trader Joe’s,
hoping she doesn’t forget my soft licorice,
sweating cuz the air’s turned off
and she didn’t leave the keys, admiring a gal
bending over to shove grocery bags in her trunk,
suddenly my dry mouth dropped open,
out rushed a raspy voice I didn’t recognize,
“I got the blues.” A deep breath. “I got the blues.”
Over and over, I repeated the oracular words.
As Sonny Terry has crooned, I was a white boy
lost in the blues, though I was six decades away
from being a lean pimply kid, dateless,
singing loud and off-key in the church choir.

Needed to figure out what I was bluesy about.
Couldn’t duet with John Lee Hooker
cuz I don’t have the house rent blues,
or with Etta James misty about lost love,
or with Trixie Smith or Sonny Terry 
cuz I no longer sprint beside lonesome tracks, 
leap into the frigid box car of a lonesome freight.
Even beside Muddy Waters, I’d be nobody’s 
Hoochie Coochie Man with mojo, a black cat bone,
making pretty women jump and shout.

Back in ’02 paddled a canoe with my friend Paige 
the Big Muddy from St. Paul to New Orleans, 
reminded of Leadbelly as we passed Angola Prison,
Son House as I climbed over a levee to fetch water,
Robert Johnson as we rambled through Rosedale,
Earl King as I glided at last into Audubon Park. 
But now I’m a tourist, no longer a traveler 
who lifts a thumb, waves a hand-drawn sign,
converses with drivers who want to laugh or confess.

B.B. King could sing the blues after paying his dues,
lying in a ghetto flat numb and dusted with rime, 
turned away at the welfare office, staring in a mirror 
at the lined, slackening truth wrought by Father Time.

Cataracts clouding my eyes, got mobility issues 
so I shuffle to avoid tearing soft tissue. 
Prick my figure every morn, swallow pills
I don’t wanna take, remember and rue
every time I try to snooze. Google ex-girlfriends,
sorrowful to find them dead. Sometimes dizzy
when I clamber outta my bed. Are these my dues?
Not sure how I’m gonna do it, 
but I’ve gotta take a deep breath, bellow my blues.