shades of ray
--- For Ray Charles
dark shades of ray
swaying to
fatback funk
& blue indigo
incognito,
comping dirges so slow,
the drummer’s lost
& looking for a tempo --
sweet gospel
heal your soul
throw your crutches
away -– lean on ray
say amen somebody…
river of fingers
leafing through
keys looking for a lost
note – the flatted fifth
of the apocalypse…
i think
i heard it today
just about the time
ray's unbound soul
quit this
bone cold world
on angel wings
of thunder
a world without ray –
who wants it?
i’m gonna paint
my windows black
as foster-grants
& go to bed forever
bricks
living totally
inside my window
where i’ve stood
too long -- watching
bodies
in the streets below
caught in the undertow
of some unseen tide --
holding onto myself
each day
by keying words
into a cold machine
sketching
a wounded architecture
of letters to fuse
splintered thoughts
enclose
swiftly disintegrating
bits and pieces
less tangible than the wind
struggling
to add one brick
to a temporary wall
that might,
for a time,
hold back the storm
of life’s
relentless, leveling force
beat
it’s cold.
bleak.
no freedom
in the frozen streets
75 cents
& a chewed-up
copy of “naked lunch”
in his over-coat pocket
taking a break
over a warm metal grate
listening
to subterranean trains
rumbling
back & forth
on static steel tracks
to nowhere --
blue eyes
cracking like ice
no dreaming
on the sidewalks tonight
a satori-seeking poet
dragging history
around town
in a brown-paper bag
blood-colored
tokay
blunts memories
that won’t go away
visions
of benzedrine-fueled
ghosts spitting out
winding lines of
beat-inflected bullshit
with rust-covered voices
howling about chaos
in the cosmos --
the last desolation angel
takes a drink & thinks
about a stroll
to the depot --
sit & raise a toast
to the 3 a.m. greyhound
leaving
empty for the coast
american nomads
jagged
january wind cuts
like a cold-chisel
through cemetery
rows of watchful
parking meters
tombstone reminders
that time
never sleeps
waiting grave markers
for graying
prodigal sons
stumbling, done-in
down naked
narcotic streets
still unwilling
to swap
half-worlds
of unfillable space
& gratuitous
suicide
for a valid world
of comfortable
clichés & pipers
playing
sweet songs
of coming home --
american nomads
following
feeble streetlights
that mark the way
from failing grace
to dream-empty rooms
D.B. Cox
Watertown, MA, USA
Blues musician/poet/Ex-Marine originally from South Carolina currently
resides in Watertown Massachusetts. Uses a Les Paul Standard, tuned to
open E chord for slide guitar, and prefers a glass slide to a metal one. No
longer takes requests when he plays out.
Donnies first book “Passing For Blue” is being published by Rank Stranger Press. You can contact the publisher by Email at AWHITLEY2@nc.rr.com, or by regular mail at Rank Stranger Press, 313 Smith Chapel Rd., Mount Olive, NC 28365, Charles Whitley, editor.
