Daily Archives: December 8, 2014

Big Joe Turner

Originally posted 6/13/2012.

Big Joe Turner could palm a jump blues
like an egg, could handle it rough
and never break it even as he smote the air
with the soft club of his voice
floating over and through.

I try it myself. I think I sound
good, as good as that.
The shell fragments on my hands
and the sticky yolk say no.
The heart of me says no too.

Big Joe Turner,
they are forgetting you
and your kiss curled imitators.
Big Joe Turner,
I’ll owe you forever 

for the mess on my hands
and the mark on my bones.

They won’t dry or heal,
no matter what others

do or do not do.


Iron Tang

New poem.

Cooks a hearty breakfast with privilege for fuel. Finds it
smoky and filling with a subtle iron tang under the cheesy
notes of the primary flavors.

Showers then for work under hot, hot water thanks to 
privilege burning in the basement furnace.  Then, warm clothes
to wear, thick carpets underfoot, fine shoes and doors

that open both ways, a solid car,
a road, a job, a team of coworkers, a good dinner out and
a drink later with that iron tang on the tongue

present the whole time, insistence
upon reminder upon demand.
It once was interesting, now is at once maddening

and integral. Comes up empty trying to name it. Thinks,
it’s not the privilege. It’s not. It’s not. Turns on the television,
then turns it off at the sight of streets of blood. Promises

to puzzle it out
tomorrow
on a full stomach.