The Atlantic Delta

Skip James sings the blues
And I drink mine
Dark Stout for a rainy day
The sky almost as dark
As the deepest recesses of my mind
Or even the severed and tattered strata
Of that muscle that pumps the blood
Throughout this aching, weary body of mine.

Drinkin' the memories down with a bottle,
Howlin' the blues
Crying out to be heard
Through thin apartment walls,
Into the damp and cold streets,
Past families that are tucked in, waiting for tomorrow
Beyond the man who lives in the cardboard box on 17th street
Around the corner from the child who lives in the youth center
Next door to the woman who stole you away
Through walls of icy glass
Into your heart.

Fingers play on a guitar
As my fingers play on this bottle, my second of many for the night
And my mind plays on times when being alone
Did not seem like a sentence of solitary confinement;
The silence broken only by the crackled recording
Of an old delta bluesman,
My uneven sobs,
And the sound of my bottle as I rest it unevenly on the table.