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Escape of the Bluesman's Song
Within the frame a sepia scene
a dusty porch a rickety chair
the fabric of your dusky face creased
with ceaseless sunbaked woes
your old pair of getaway feet gives
a different walk of life
to an old pair of thrown-away shoes
two sizes too big and as full of holes
as the harmonica you hold –
you remember..
your backbone the plow driven through gadfly soil swarmed
with eyes and stingers and mouthparts sucking marrow
paleface morality two-faced in your person-dignity pillage
losing wishbone-breakage in body-breaking tillage
for a crop you have no share in.. except
for expanding crops of pain implanted by plowers
a harrowed pulse flows
through chambers both metal and mortal
embouchure’s grip with cracked lips
vibrate raspy reeds to bleed
smudgy-notes-smooched
lament the air-split whip
sizzle-snaps of the leather snake
a shoulders to buttocks sharp-fanged strafe
cotton gin justice for overseer’s chafe
wicked braille welts read of tactual factual brutality;
the wrench of your wretched chattel-life
you remember..
the humid cling of cold-sweat fretting furrows
of bondage-resistant brows
it pours briny from tiny tormenting pores
beads bee-sting your bull’s-eye pupils
held hostage in a wide-eyed white canvas of angst
glazing your skin the shade
of a chestnut’s roasted coat in December –
the swelter of escape in the shelter of swamps
your manful heart flexed - a daring passenger on the move;
railroad underground but over ground and undercover
a night-sky-water-dipper sipper on a quest
to quench freedom’s thirst with an ethereal map choired
across cotton fields’ roiled yoke
and tobacco fields’ toiled choke and
hymned in the cramp of black quarters
smoky whiffs and chuffing riffs churn
slick yet sick with sulks they slide the track
blues mood slurs
vibrato’s bravado blurs
plantation friction railway diction
distant tidewater pain pushes into your mind’s marsh;
transition-zone from slave man to free man
and like the Chesapeake both a womb and a tomb
you remember her song of sorrow..
your west African grandmother
her spirit one with the ancient salt and sand
of the Windward shore and her heart as heavy
as the hull’s belly-gorge of flesh and blood cargo;
wishing for the seawater in her veins to drown her –
her ghost croons to your inner-child still upon her knee
the rise of kinfolk spirituals saturate to weep
harmonica’s southern drawl quavers with primal
plaintive pleas of breathing possessions kidnapped
from a land of gold and tusks - her people your people!
stacked like ebony planks in seasick holds to build inhumane wealth;
bought beaten
sold beaten
traded beaten
slave babies born in the Old South
beaten by the shackles of ramshackle shacks!
harp’s intimate groan; worried worn wearied notes
cupped in your hands ripped by the pick of cotton
cradled to a mouth with lips of a fullness
your hungry slave boy’s belly never knew
you don’t want to remember but you do..
memories collect like nesting sparrows beneath eaves
your bluesman’s soul overflows as you breathe
a wavy whine in slow solo
anguished airstream’s inhale
flare of iron-horse exhale
.. a train whistle’s approach from auction block past;
auctioneer’s leer as the gavel slams down!
a screaking child peeled off a shrieking mother’s skirts
like the skin stripped off a dead rabbit –
streams of her screams run a gully in your gut ever deeper
mournful melody laid out and laid down
stewed in the still of your lifeblood
the mash of sad and mad moves in and out
of your heart-grooves with a whiskey’s burn
then settles like a wraith of wrath and faith
in the dried wheel-ruts outside your door
f r e e
to wander beyond the old age of your stoop
laden with a dazed load of a million misery moans
and the haunt of iron chains as heavy
as the branding irons’ hot
Susan Ashley
October 7, 2021
~ First Place~
Premiere Contest: Your Personal Favorite, NO. 2
Sponsor: L Milton Hankins
Poet’s note: this poem was inspired by the instrumentation of “Sweet Black Angel”; Rolling Stones; 1972 album Exile on Main Street; written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It is my humble attempt to pay homage to the vanquished in their victory of escape from slavery through the Underground Railroad and to raise awareness to the inhumane injustices and agonies inflicted upon the enslaved innocents. This is the first of a pair of poems to explore this theme. The other “Antebellum Blues” will be posted at a later date.
Image: Railway path; photo by Bagi Borbala
*embouchure: the way a player applies the mouth to the mouthpiece of a harmonica
*passenger: an escaped slave traveling through the Underground Railroad
*harp: informal name for harmonica
Copyright ©
Susan Ashley
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