The Big House

I

The Grayhair rocked the cradle
long before some loose-hipped country boy
kicked down that split rail fence
in the country of white folk and
black folk playing music from
wherever it was they came from
before they decided they came from here
but hearing it all and playing all
the licks in the style of the most players
at this particular hootenanny, ceilidh,
getting down blues jam, or djembe circle
and some could only dance but
no one could keep still feet
in the presence of the driving beat
and a coal shuttle voice
sometimes singin’ ‘bout
“Annie May’s Cafe,
there’s one in every town.
.38 special behind the bar
another in the pocket of her gown.”
Some hand-lettered board or
half broken neon sign might say
Gutbucket Blues Hall, Rib Shack,
Uncle Milton’s, P. J.’s,
Big Mama’s Music Hall, or
something close to it
if they could spell at all.
Singer, mouth harp, guitar
maybe squeeze box and a walking bass
shufflin’ on, and every hot night
was a long good night to
drive it on down,
take it on home.

II

The young folk followed that
loose-hipped white boy
away from Beale Street
towards the Sun on Madison Avenue,
had to call their music
something else to make it
acceptable, respectable,
connectible, bookable
in southern-state Holiday Inn
lounges and convention center
ballrooms in Bible-belt
county seats patrolled by
blue-nosed prudes, blue-rinsed matrons
and newly self-ordained and self-annointed
storefront preacher men who
talked to old what’s his face
just last week and was struck
deef and dumb for some number
of hours corresponding exactly
to the time it takes to sleep off
a three day drunk. (Glory! He is risen.)
And he will share his great new revelation
in a spirit of jubilation and in
anticipation of remuneration, (Hallelujah!)
for the inspiration provided by the
deification of old what’s his face.
(Somebody gimme an Amen!)
brought to you now through
the magic of radio, the electrification
of superstitious farce. ”Send 5 dollars
and I will pray for you. In the meantime here is
a good old time Christian gospel tune for you to handle snakes by.”

III

All Robert Johnson’s chillun heard it all
and all the childeen of the Scots-Irish way back
up in the coves of Appalachia
playing mandolins, banjos,
dobros, zithers, fiddles
and the ‘small box’ that survived
the salt spray below decks
on the long boat ride to Amerikay!
The troubadors sang about
Six Black Horses and
Brown Mountain LIghts.
The black orphans in the marching bands
struttin’ on home to honor the dead
Way Down Yonder in that once great city
where it came together and started
a long boat ride upriver.
THE river. Ole Man River. The Big Muddy
flowing through cotton fields with
bargemen chanting, field hands whooping
and hollering work songs that sometimes
turn to rain-makin’ god-praisin’ gospel singin’
just like Sunday mornin’ go to meetin’
music. And that early mornin hurryin to Jesus is
still a little bit too close to that
Saturday night hurryin to
‘get some of that ole sweet roll,’ when
the spider-skinny men get to struttin
and the sticky-lipped gals get all twitchy-hipped.
Beat’s the same, maybe the words are too,
four-beat 12-bar boogie with a thumping bass
‘Comin on home to the promised land.

IV

At Memphis, barges landed on the cobblestone bank
near the old Cotton Exchange at the
foot of Beale Street to take on
bales and lumber to carry north
and let the bargemen visit the ground-floor
blues parlors and the
upstairs pleasure parlors.
Some went further north
some in freight-cars,
some on the back seats of Greyhounds
as far north to where the land
quit fighting the cold winds and
swirling snowstorms off the lake,
and let the water have it.
Those raw winds off the lake
chewed the ears and chilled the brain,
gave urgent reason to hurry up and
take it inside like those
steel-string electric guitars
of the Chicago blues players.
Keen leading edges of notes like broken ice
slice through electric space.
They zing, hiss and buzz
crack and spit, cut and sting
like mean fingernails
flicking frozen earlobes.

V

And then it spread east and west
back down to barbecue land
like blood oozing
over uneven sidewalks,
over curbs into gutters
with the mud and unlucky
numbers slips down the
drains into the rivers
upstream and down,
gushing from the cracked skull or
bullet in the chest of
some faithless lover who
won’t be kicking in her stall
NO MO,
tumbling splashing roaring crashing banging
twanging yodeling sliding picking and chording,
No matter how far they went,
coming back home.
The Big House was always big enough,
as big as it needed to be.
How big does it need to be to
hold all that American Music?