Three Poems

Glory Train

Too often I have heard the call yet sat
in disbelief or shaked in fear at major
buffoonery that mates would make of me;
who might I tell of bedtime visitations
brief when no one is about, who stands
to wait while I describe an angel voice,
yes, as if doves' in coo, angel raiment
as if sun dogs glowed beside a brightest
and most brilliant light where earthly
death awaits me if I go. There is no one.

I know. I think the flame that burns my
eyes is where my father long before had
gone without one word, just off to work,
then he was gone. He never said goodbye.
My God! It's mama and my sister Pru who
rock me from my good sound sleep and
have the porch light burning high right
in my face; they're asking what'd I do
and where I've been. I tell it straight.

I've memory. It's late, so one or two
I reckon I might share with both of you.
It's Michael - Archie - here on weekend
pass and his pal George with crazy Tony
too. There's Mary Lizbeth and a lovely
gal they'd like to have me meet. Good
Lord, the brew! (Ma hit me some; or,
might have been my sister Pru.) I do
recall a dance floor all awash and Moses
Black upon his porch just singing to his
dogs the blues. Sure gonna rain, I heard
him call, you best get back inside. Then
squealing wheels and flashing lights -
I thought my end had come for true (Hey!
Pru, you just stop slapping ME, I've got
memory of plenty times you've snuck out
late - you want me tell mama all o' that?)

Lights come on all up and down the road;
the neighbors start to shout; on edge of
letting loose the dogs, it's crazy Tony
four door down: "Don't kill him, he owes
me money yet!". My eyeballs point small
as a pismire poop, I drop upon my knees
and cry out loud, "The Lord! I seen Him!
YES, the Lord! I got me, mama, a saved
soul; I'm born again and will do right,
Yes I've seen the Lord this very Night!"
Mama stepped an inkling back, her arms
raised up, her mouth around - here comes
her hallelujah punch! And sure enough,
she back-hands me down 'cross my cheeks
(I thought I heard my neck bones POP
clear down several generations of my back
so far I swear that Adam woke up Eve
that first night out an' say 'Lord, what
was that?' then 'oh go to sleep! It's
just a horny goat and sheep he's at').

"Satan has his brimstone brand of twisted
truth, " she said, "You better never give
me that; I heard it all past once enough -
Don't never and forever shout that crap!"
My mama was a dainty bit a long way back
(her daddy, Jim Beau James, he told me
that) but never get her angry, boy; she's
never, ever, nor will she lose a scrap.

She beat me almost down to hell, then
drug me back to send me there again.
I heard my darling sister, gentle Pru:
"I'll get the frying pan and be right there."
Then once again I heard the call as clear
as I'd heard Mary Lizbeth's bra go snap.
Who might I tell and where might I go?
Salvation's in the light. I heard it once
when I was at the picture show. And now
I saw it coming down the track; God's
own red-eye out of town at four-oh-eight.
I saw the light. I lifted up. I was a sight.
I walked by mama with her jackass jaw
gone slack; I walked upon the dewy grass,
past forty acres and the scrawny mule!
I'll never fear nor need face the pain
of beatings or of ridicule. I jumped.
God's my witness: I surely won't be back!

---

Been To Crete

That I had been all the way to Crete
then back or sailed the Crescent Coast
like a pirate whose ghost still hides
a ship in Barantary; this is no boast
I will admit nor tale to tell my sons.
I'd rather they just stand in place,
not roam the earth after whatever I had
thought I sought in some distant place.

A woman in a shack on the edge of Crete
she waits for my return; she writes me
twice a week; I burn her scrawl to make
night's heat and fall asleep to dream
her touch so sweet - velvet fingers are
a sailor's friend - her bright red lips
like pomegranite seeds - so flush so red
the juice. No, I never should have gone
to Crete; I never should have left my
home. Stay put, my boys; never roam.

Her hair as red as setting suns, her skin
as dark as eclipsed moon. O Yes. I've
been to Crete, to Crete then Back, I'd
like to think. But only flesh has gone
and sits here now; my soul has never
left from Crete; that voodoo bitch of
Bayou Forche has stole my soul. I'd
like to think and tell my sons there's
no such place and nothing like that
woman known to man. I tell them stand
in place and never roam, stay home.
There's no such love can cause
my sons to roam, to sin, to leave
this home. Never was nor will there be.

(She's like the moon that every night
is out.
You needn't see it there to know.
What was her name? I wish I knew.)

---

Shapeless Water

Where the Choctaws had surrendered from the woodline
to the southward the lands along the trace and Yalobush
in her the tide of stranger's coming rises as she swells
with anticipation of the stranger coming to displace her
among the tribe of strangers resident in ancestral place

By laws of strangers resident on another's land ancestral
her ancient event of spirit stranger coming she registers
their name for what their story of the rib had done to her
she'll call him Cain for all of that which grows by water:
fear of lesser brothers who will kill or sell their betters.

In the water of the river near the garden Adam planted, she
will rest her weighty history of all that others whispered,
will dream the truth anew of ancient ritual water's purity,
will reclaim tribal women who carried life with them until
soft curve of earthen belly ruptures water--the broken urn
amid the cane-rows in the shallows men who fish discover
escaped from shapeless roundness into now shaped comfort
someday soon strapling stranger, angry spirit now returned.