Slim Harpo Is Dead
Slim Harpo is dead But he’s still got love if you want it Bone echoes from Mulatto Bend Slim down in that Louisiana mud reaches up to you
Work gangs slam picks in hard soil Digging down, digging down seek that hoarse vein Voices cry out from the earth “Rosie! Rosie!” But Rosie’s gone
It’s nighttime No one’s coming South of here the fires burn Here it is simply night There is no miracle and there is no going forth No returning, no rest
A father at the party tonight spoke of his baby’s progress But I didn’t believe him Slim didn’t believe him, either Babies are a cause for mourning Slim said that He also said, “This ground is cold” He doesn’t have to trouble about breathing Slim can sleep as long as he likes
Clothes so worn we can’t see them anymore lie there in a puddle on the floor Nothing more than a shadow of a shadow of an echo of a memory of a dream Slim knows Every day he gets slimmer He wants only one thing and that is a light But he doesn’t get it Not the faintest glimmer
Frost hit the ground Bit the apples on the tree I saw Rosie out there, picking some I saw Slim, too, blowing that harp But he didn’t make a sound The back rooms are cold The fire’s gone out The sad prisoners shuffle by bearing their picks and stripes
Slim will be gone before the sun comes up He’s taking Rosie with him They laugh and hold hands They wander off silent as the clay and kiss beneath the shivering stars
Blind Willie Johnson’s Lullaby
I’m under the influence of too many suns dinners alone in cities where the streets are dusted with bones where women wander in store light where dogs bark but there are no dogs
I sit and the planet rolls past I can’t move I don’t have to I’ve learned the value of nothing I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut I’ve learned to look around
Everyone, all my friends they marched along until they fell and now they’re back there somewhere in the gathering dusk Nothing can be done for them
There, up ahead on an otherwise vacant corner under a moon and stars he cannot see my friend and comforter singing across the ages in words we cannot hear Dark was the night Cold was the ground
Philip Newton— “Most recently, my work has been published in the Ginosko Literary Review, Letters Journal, The Hamilton Stone Review, Roanoke Review, Calliope, and other periodicals. A novel, TERRANE, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2018. I am a writer, musician and stonemason living in Oregon.”