For Rilke

(Folk Life Festival)

Wild: the Madras shirts, the bright plaid shorts; the faces

barred with dark glasses see black-clad staid forms; they

barely hear the sounds they came for. “Yes, my daddy

and my granddaddy was all carpenters.” “The toughest

job in the sawmill? Wahl, don’t know,

‘ts all hard work.” Arms from shirtless

torso give shoulders massage.

“Ah don’t know about OSHA, sir,

but ah don’t wear gloves; sure

get some splinters, but that saw catch a glove,

pull yew raht in too.” Balding heads

nod, out of shirts tagged

with alligators, mouths open, speech displaced

from chewing ribs, feet in flip-flops

clenching toes.

“I got a pig; now he runs on,

all I want is a little girl,

to feed him when I’m gone,”

sung to banjo counterpoint.

Headphoned ears

don’t pick up higher voices. “Honey, if I

didn’t cut up the rabbit myself, it

wouldn’t get cut! Now Joe

don’t want me to kill

a black snake, says he watches over us. But I

don’t see how -- so I kill ‘em.”

Watermelon

dissolves lipstick under punk haircuts.

“Why, we cook all them little furry

creatures run around, coon ‘n squirrel,

‘n possum too.” “Ain’t she

a real story teller? ‘Course Joe and Ethel

still cook with lard.”

Sodomy

is banned by court decree, it’s whispered,

as sandals with gym socks walk by.

“See how she puts her finger in each

biscuit, don’t want ‘em to rise too much.”

“Y’all ready to party? Let’s have a hand

for a real Cajun band, direct from Madame Gaye’s

establishment, that is, Noo Awlans!”

We play black, that is, creole music at day’s

end, and like, we aware, watchin’

the wild colors whirl.

Deaf ‘n dumb,

they dance with dark glasses, like panthers

pacin’ ‘bout a point, where once there was

some consciousness, now all numb, jus’ become

a wavelength within the visible spectrum,

absorbed by polaroid.

(9/86)                                                             

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