Mississippi Calling

please answer.

please pick up
that humming hunk of plastic
quivering around the table
like a living thing

which it is
living link
between us
maybe the last link

please answer.

it’s late
I know you must be there
in my mind
i have a vision of you
sitting before the window
high up, lights out
staring across the tops of buildings
light years
from Mississippi and me

if you would answer
just one last time
i could explain
what I know now
about me
about you
about us
about us gone wrong

why I did things
why I didn’t do others
the whys of it all

but you don’t answer.

a storm is coming:
the low rumble
from a coal black mound
of roiling clouds
running hard and fast
riding the wind from the south
you remember
that feel, that smell
because there are roots here
you cannot escape
things you cannot forget
except me

in a minute
the first splatters
will hit hard and loud
kicking up the dust
then beating it down
rattling the leaves
crackling against the glass
rain will drive in shimmering sheets
and I will stand in it
dare the storm to beat me
down
which it can’t

remember the old blues line:
been down so long
it looks like up to me

wise words

no answer:

I’ll leave you this last message
try to talk without stumbling
without tasting in my throat
the burning bile of pain
tell you that I just need
you to be
my saviour, my own Christ
proving you can
redeem the unredeemable
love the unlovable
forgive the unforgivable

I’m already on the cross
your silence
the nails through my palms
not stigmata
real
bleeding steady
into the dark dirt

where your feet should be
here
with me
Mississippi

**

Easy Confession

Billy owned up to the deed
as soon as the cops walked in his door:

Yep, he’d talked one of his ex-wife’s gal pals
who didn’t exactly like her very much to start
into slipping a few roofies into her pina colada
and calling Billy when she was good and out

Who brought along an unidentified tattoo artist

(Actually it was Weird Harold,
an acknowledged genius, but
Billy would never rat him out)

Later
almost an afterthought
Billy took a well-used razor
from her bathroom
and dry shaved her curly bush
into a reverse triangle
pointing upward at Weird Harold’s commissioned handiwork

a blood red heart
broken into two slivers
beneath which was inked:

“Beware all ye who enter here”